


Thirty Days

by ayoungvein



Category: All Time Low, Cobra Starship, Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance, Panic! at the Disco, The Academy Is...
Genre: M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-01
Updated: 2013-03-30
Packaged: 2017-11-20 05:54:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 30
Words: 60,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/582017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ayoungvein/pseuds/ayoungvein
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's thirty days of the holiday season and not enough time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Snow

**Author's Note:**

> This is a Christmas fic with several pairings - one different one per chapter for each day of the holiday season. Enjoy!

# Thirty Days

#### Chapter One: Snow

He sits and watches the world pass.

It is winter and everything is a flurry of snowflakes and blue skies and December sunshine. Long gone are the days of falling leaves and amber skies, of crisp autumn nights spent around bonfires, of sharing hoodies and cigarettes. Long gone are the fresh starts and the echoes of a summer’s laughter. But it’s not as though Pete mourns the season because, quite frankly, there’s nothing like the winter. After all, isn’t Christmas the season for love? Isn’t Christmastime for lovers?

The season for festival lights, a myriad of the color spectrum, down the streets, making the city glow with ornaments of nostalgia. The season for warm fireplaces and frothy hot chocolates and the smell of pine indoors and the feeling of cold toes curling against the other’s in the bed. The season for kisses and hugs and warm bodies pressed together underneath the blankets.

The little murmur in the tent of sheets seems to agree with these ponderings. And Pete smiles.

“Patrick,” he hisses into the tranquillity of the bedroom, still prevalent with the last ghosts of sleep in the air. “Patrick, wake up.”

Another murmur. This one isn’t any more intelligible, and Pete grins, simple smiles and starry eyes. He fucking loves those little mumbles of Patrick in the morning, of Patrick in that hypnagogic state where everything is a blur between reality and dreaming. Where Patrick’s trying to decipher what’s going on in the world around him, and he inadvertently ends up prattling something he heard on the television or a song lyric of Pete’s he’d read earlier. Those are the mumbles he loves the most from Patrick in the morning because those are the closest he’ll ever get to being in his dreams.

After all, Patrick’s usually in all his dreams and he thinks it should be mutual.

“Tricky,” he whispers, this time leaning closer to the snoring prince with the last traces of the sandman on his eyelashes, leaning closer and closer to that moment where Patrick is awake and smiling and laughing and painting Pete’s world in all the shades the winter snow does not have. “Wake up!”

Again, another murmur.

But also a countdown. _Three… two… one…._

And then Pete is jumping onto the bed, tackling the tiny figure in it and hearing the yelps and squeaks emitting from him.

“ _Pete, what the fuck_?” Patrick flails around beneath his weight, eyes wide and startled and face flustered.

“Patrick, you have to wake up,” Pete explains, staring down at his best friend and letting another smile flit across his face at the way Patrick looks when he wakes up. The tousled honeycomb head, the sea green in his eyes ringed with an undertow of sleep and the flustered pink tint to his cheeks that flushes whenever Pete gets too close to him. When Patrick wakes up in the December morning, with the silver of the winter light dancing through the glass, he looks damned near perfect.

“Why?” Patrick grumbles, looking like he needs a cup of hot tea (three sugars, Pete thinks offhandedly, because Patrick has a sweet-tooth). And when Pete forgets to answer, lost in his own little world of Patrick Stump, he repeats the question.

“Because it’s snowing!” He points out the window to where a kingdom of falling snowflakes and untouched snow blankets across the yard. The shimmering crystals of fallen flakes in the sun’s reflection. The lethargic wisps of barely-there clouds in the sky. The patch of heaven that plays a better role for Pete than any backyard garden could ever.

Out of his peripheral vision, Patrick spots the alarm clock. “Pete, it’s eight in the morning… on a Saturday!”

“I know,” he says matter-of-factly, still smiling and shifting his weight to the heels of his feet and watching the faint blush of Patrick’s cheeks fade away into those familiar cowslip cheeks. “Now, c’mon.”

Patrick groans and falls back into the pillows as Pete goes about rummaging through the closet, chucking an assortment of clothing articles at him. “Hurry up. Five minutes.”

A sigh. “You’re lucky that I love you.”

 

\---

 

Winds roll and barely-there clouds dissipate and ice crystals shimmer with the lambent sunshine and all Pete can think, surrounded by a wonderland that can’t be bottled in a rabbit hole, is how much he thinks his life would make a perfect movie, in this perfect moment. Him, the troubled protagonist on a road to redemption; and Patrick, the ethereal saviour who gives him a taste of heaven.

And heaven plays home upon those lips.

The lips peeking out from a thick scarf on Patrick’s body, nothing out of place, what with the thousands of other layers Patrick’s built on his body. A bear coat of jackets, a giant scarf, a ball top knit hat and a pair of matching gloves.

“Are you dressing for a snow day or an ice age?” he asks, through bouts of laughter.

“Funny,” Patrick notes dully. “Just remember _you_ were the one who woke _me_ up.”

“It was for a good cause.”

“Last time you said that was because you couldn’t find your girl pants.”

“Skinny jeans,” Pete defends.

“And the time before that you wanted a blowjob.”

“An emergency blowjob.”

Patrick shakes his head, well aware of fighting a lost cause. And Pete sympathizes, really he does. After all, Patrick trusts his intentions fully, just not his judgement. And Pete’s also aware that no other person in the world would agree to be awaken over fashionista fits and dick-sucking deprivation. No one but Patrick Stump, who puts up with Pete Wentz through it all. Who quells his nerves and nightmares. Who calms him down when his hysteria becomes too much for either of them.

And one day Pete will show Patrick how much he appreciates all of this.

One day.

But, now, in this moment with him and Patrick and their little garden of snowy clouds and ice castles and falling angels, he can’t think of anything else. Can’t think of anything except that little countdown inside his head going off again. Three, two, one, and Pete’s falling into Patrick- tackling him into the quilt of snow.

“Fuckin’ hell, Pete!” Patrick exclaims, for the second time in a single hour. “You know I hate it when you do that.”

“Love you, too, honey,” Pete snorts, watching Patrick wrinkle his nose in detest at the pet name, before rolling to the side and staring up at the twirling snowflakes cascading upon them.

Twirling. Dancing. Pirouetting down in graces and swift movements like butterflies and horseflies and all those other nursery rhymes and lullabies Pete’s only read a thousand times. Sighing, he turns to look at the stiff form of his friend. “Ever think about snowflakes, Patrick?”

He exhales, a fog curling up towards the sky, “Not nearly as much as you, I’m sure.”

“Bet there’s one for every unsaid ‘I love you’,” Pete says, trying to work the cogs in his mind this early in the morning, running on a fantasy of sleep that had issued from his pen only a night’s previous.

“A lot of snowflakes,” Patrick reminds his friend.

“Lot of broken hearts,” Pete counters.

Patrick merely hums in acquiescence, a noise of pure melody and music to Pete’s ears that becomes a soundtrack to the falling snow, a soundtrack to the first day of Christmas, to the first Christmas with him and Patrick as lovers and to the many more that would come. This Christmas, he decides, is going to be like every love song on the radio because Patrick will be singing the tune for the entire month of December.

First Christmases in the honeymoon state are meant to be spent in early morning dregs of a blizzard, are meant to be spent imprinting their silhouettes upon the backyard, are meant to be just Pete and Patrick. _Me and you._

Pete swears he’s written a song about the inevitability of falling love (and the inevitability of falling in love with _Patrick_ ); but it’s too early in the morning on too little sleep to think straight.

“You’re awfully depressing this morning,” Patrick jokes lightly, a chuckle escaping in a cloud of frost that sounds like some other jingle to Pete’s ears- like chiming bells or rain tinkling on glass or snow crunching under feet. Like the sounds of falling in love all over again.

“I’m not brooding, am I?” he asks, watching as Patrick rolls over onto an untouched plot of snow before spreading his limbs about and creating a snow angel. A perfect representation of himself in the snow. An embodiment of Patrick. A silhouette of perfection. A less than permanent painting of his lover. A love letter, in their own way.

“Cheer up, Pete. It’s snowing,” Patrick reminds Pete, trying to keep the constant battle of Pete’s thoughts at some sort of stand-still. “It’s like Nightmare Before Christmas. _We could live like Jack and Sally if we want_ ,” he sings, causing a smile to tug at Pete’s lips, like that of this morning when everything was fresh and new and young love.

“We could live like Edward and Kim.” Pete keeps his eyes gazed on all the lost loves falling from the sky like a thousand diamond rings that never made it to that one person who wanted to fall asleep next to you.

“Pete,” Patrick says, rolling away from his imprint in the snow and onto the warm body of Pete Wentz, “Edward lived the rest of his life alone. Don’t think you’re getting rid of me _that_ easily.”

He grins, slipping his arms around Patrick’s waist because they just _fit_ like that. Because Pete Wentz needs Patrick Stump, and Patrick Stump needs Pete Wentz. Because love just works like that.  
Pete tells Patrick this.

Patrick laughs, “For being the poster-child of whiny lyrics, you’re a lot more romantic than the media gives you credit for.”

“The media’s never seen us like this,” he reasons.

A brow is raised at this. “So the media doesn’t catch the way you attach yourself to my hip on stage?”

“Can’t help that, dear,” Pete laughs, “Your ass is a dick magnet.”

Patrick blushes and gives Pete a weak shove, laughing along. “For your dick, maybe.”

“Patrick, if I were gay, I’d totally do you.”

“So what do you call _this_?” He motions between them. “Curiosity? Hit-and-run?”

“Love,” Pete says simply.

Patrick rolls his eyes and mutters something that sounds like ‘gay’ before burying his face in Pete’s neck. And Pete, he smiles because of course he’s gay for Patrick, but it’s not like Patrick doesn’t get a kick out of Pete’s crappy jokes regarding his barely-there heterosexuality.

They lay there like that for a moment (or an eternity, for all Pete wished), heat pressing against each other and warm breaths splaying across the other’s face, hands finding each other through the thick snow gloves and lips finding each other through thick scarves.

It’s not a kiss under the mistletoe, Pete thinks, but it’s better than he could have dreamed: his first winter kiss with Patrick, tucked away in this snowy haven. The gentle push of Patrick’s lips against his and the way his breath tastes something sweet like a constant sugar rush that Pete doesn’t think he could come down from if he tries. The way there’s never enough oxygen in Pete’s lungs when he’s breathing in Patrick, but it’s not like he’d have it any other way. And the way that Patrick’s always quivering under his touch, always awkward and embarrassed and completely perfect to Pete in all those ways. Christmas kisses beneath the snowy canopy, perfect in the way Patrick is.

“Pete?” Patrick mumbles against his lips, when the falling snow has ceased and their shaking breaths and beating hearts are the only soundtrack left.

“Hmm?”

“You know how you said snowflakes were unsaid ‘I love you’s’?”

“Yeah.”

Patrick grins, a goofy and toothy and childish smile, something of a mirror to Pete’s morning happiness. Then, without losing another second, he’s shaking a single flake from his head onto Pete’s nose and pressing his lips to his again. Kissing him with the winter love of Jack and Sally and the art of snow angels and the feeling of two bodies pressed together in the back of Pete’s snowy yard.

Patrick’s lips are soft and trembling against his, from both the cold and from the fact that Pete always makes his friend nervous, and the fact makes Pete smile into the kiss. Then Patrick’s smiling with him and pulling away from the kiss and laying his forehead against his, staring into his eyes with a gleam in them that only the Yuletide season could bring out properly in those eyes that have saved his life too many times to count.

And all those thoughts, all those unsettling thoughts that always fester in the back of Pete’s mind, don’t seem to matter. Because he’s got blue skies above him and white snow below him, and in the middle, where heaven and purgatory meet infinity, he’s got Patrick.

Pete watches the world pass through the reflection of Patrick’s eyes.

 

\---

_You look so good in blue_ , Pete hums to himself, looking over at Patrick in the frosty air of the morning.

“Want to go inside, yet?” Patrick asks. His hands are bare, mittens discarded, and he’s running his fingers through Pete’s snow-filled hair, playing with the strands; and Pete, he’s all but nuzzling into Patrick’s touch.

“Not yet,” he says, even though he’s nearly frozen and the only warmth he has is that of Patrick’s body, his stomach substituting as the perfect pillow for Pete.

“You’re going to get sick,” Patrick warns him.

“You’re going to have to take care of me.”

Patrick gives Pete’s hair a playful tug. “Sometimes I feel more like your mother…”

“Than my boyfriend?” Pete teases, smiling against Patrick’s stomach.

“Shut up,” he laughs, cheeks reddening, despite the cold weather. “I do.”

“Oedipus complex,” Pete jokes, again, feeling Patrick’s body shake under him with silent laughter.

Suddenly, Patrick rolls them over, curling into his warmth and ducking his head into the crook of his shoulder. “You need to grow up, Peter Pan.”

He laughs, “Does that make you Tinker Bell?”

“No.”

“Patrick’s a fairy,” Pete snickers.

Patrick grabs a handful of snow and smashes it in Pete’s face. And Pete laughs and rolls them over again, trapping Patrick underneath his body and watching the way the younger struggles against him and the way the December light creates a halo of phosphenes around his head.

Absentmindedly, Pete sifts a hand through the snowflake-filled hair of his partner. “Patrick,” he whispers, “will you marry me?”

And Patrick laughs because he probably has a penny for every time Pete’s ever proposed to him. He leans up and kisses Pete’s forehead. “No, Pete.”

“Fine. Will you at least sing me something?” he asks because sometimes the world only feels right when Patrick’s voice is ringing in his ears because, in those moments, the rest of the world fades away, and Pete knows he made the right decision, letting himself fall in love with his best friend, Patrick fucking Stump.

There’s still something bothering Pete in the back of his mind. There always is.

But, listening to Patrick’s voice in the beginning of winter is enough to turn off the demons in Pete’s mind. It always is.

One day, though, Patrick will understand the need to be like a thousand fairytales and the need to propose to him without a ring.

One day.


	2. Baking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All of Gerard, amplified. The sweet smell of frosting lingering on his skin and the smooth way it feels when Frank runs his hands down his cheeks to catch the stray leftovers he’s missed. The hitched breathing of Gerard as Frank continues his ministrations, and a part of him is saying that he’s making Gerard uncomfortable- but the other part can’t stop. And then there’s the way Gerard’s eyes are boring into his, trying to tell him something that Frank is just missing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I own nothing. The song in this is 'Lloyd Dobbler' by Pencey Prep.

# Thirty Days

#### Chapter Two: Baking

 

“Roll out the dough.”

“I am.”

“No, like this.” And then he’s reaching around him from behind and grabbing his hands and showing him how to properly roll the cookie dough into a flat plane.

Frank feels butterflies in his stomach.

Of course, he tries to keep his cool as Gerard (his best friend, he keeps reminding himself. Best. Friend.) lays his hands on his and guides them in swift movements to roll out the cookie dough below them.

Frank is trying to ignore the close proximity of Gerard, after all it’s not entirely unfamiliar territory for them, but it’s harder to tolerate it than before because now Frank likes how close Gerard stands to him. Would even go as far as to say he strives for the contact. For the way Gerard’s shoulder will bump against his when they walk, for the way their hands will brush on the same walk, for the way Gerard’s hands are grabbing his now and guiding them in proper cooking procedures.

“You alright, Frankie?” Gerard casts a side glance at him, preoccupied with rolling dough and littering it with cookie cutters.

All Frank can do is manage a nod and try to push those forbidden thoughts from his mind. Try to push out the fact that he’s head over heels in love his best friend. Try to remind himself that Gerard is just Gerard, and he is still Frank; and on-stage kisses and on-camera flirting is just part of the game, the fame- no strings attached.

Though, he’s almost positive, if Gerard were to look a little closer, then he would see all the signs and signals Frank’s been shooting him in hopes that his feelings would be reciprocated. And then, just maybe, the season would feel a lot more like Christmas to him than the harsh winter of reality.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Gerard pauses again.

“Yeah.” Frank shakes his head. “Just thinking.”

“About what?” he presses, littering the cookie tray with an assortment of shaped cookies: of gingerbread men and candy canes and pine trees and ornaments and snowmen and all the things that define Christmas.

Frank thinks Christmas is defined by the holiday love.

Leaning against the counter, he merely shrugs. “About Christmas in New Jersey.”

“What about it?”

“Remember how much different it was?” And by that, Frank means how he felt like less of an outsider to Gerard’s life. How the two of them were attached at the hip from the moment the first snow fell down: the snow angels in the backyard and Gerard laughing that it wasn’t gay, the shitty Christmas specials they’d watch and Gerard saying it wasn’t gay and the singing along to Christmas carols and Gerard’s voice all but insisting, _‘It’s not gay, Frankie, shut up.’_ Frank would laugh and go along with it only because it made his friend smile and laugh like he’d finally found his perfect days.

And that’s probably why he’s doing this now: the baking thing. Because it makes Gerard smile and laugh; and Frank would do anything to see the life return to his friend after so many years of the dead shell of a man he had witnessed.

Frank thinks Christmas is defined by the healing of his friend.

“This will be better than all those Christmases combined,” Gerard tells him, looking up with a grin on his face and a light in his eyes as though the north star had hung itself in his friend’s gaze. “I promise.”

There’s heart in that promise. And courage. And everything that Frank now associates Gerard with. Heart and promise and courage and home. Because Gerard is what has always kept Frank from being homesick, has always smelt like New Jersey despite being so far away from the state lines. Gerard has always smelt like laughter on front porches in the summer and the first snow in December and laying in a bed, watching the winter moonlight bounce across the ceiling in a way that reminds Frank of the aurora borealis. A miracle, some call it. Frank thinks Gerard is just that.

“Remember Pencey Prep?” he asks, mindlessly, rolling out the dough in the way that Gerard had showed him.

“Of course,” his friend chuckles, “Why?”

Frank shakes his head, watching the shapes of the Yuletide season swim in the cookie dough: the stars, the angels, the snowflakes. “No reason,” he lies as that silly song he’d written ‘Lloyd Dobbler’ enters his head. One fucking depressing foreshadowing, he tells himself.

“What’s up, Frank?”

Frank’s gaze feels forlorn upon his friend, so he busies himself in finishing up the last of the dough-rolling. “No reason.”

_Why are you so far away?_

“You’ve been worrying me lately.” Gerard cards a hand through his friend’s hair, playfully. “Cheer up; we’ve twenty-three days until Christmas.”

“Isn’t Christmas about getting nostalgic?” Frank justifies.

_Even when you’re standing next to me._

Gerard nods, sliding the trays into the ovens and propping himself against the kitchen counter to regard his friend. Frank, he feels his stomach flip at the look Gerard sends to him. It’s warm and soft and reminds him of sneaking out at midnight to lay in the snow and stare up at the stars and wonder when it was their time to shine. “Just don’t get lost in the past.”

And of course Gerard would be the one to say that because it’s Gerard with the past that scares both of them the most. The addiction. The pills. The booze. The mood swings. The nights it’d get so bad there would be punches thrown and tears shed and Frank would tuck Gerard in and Gerard would slur drunkenly to him something about getting better.

_Your eyes give you away._

At the time, Frank would just nod and believe the lies because those were what helped him fall asleep. But now, here they are, together: Gerard, sober. Here they are, together: Gerard so much happier and Frank’s former crush returning to him.

“I still worry about you, y’know?” Frank whispers, dangerously afraid of ruining the warm atmosphere they’d built up with the heat of the oven and the smell of baking cookies.  
Gerard sighs, trying to catch Frank’s eyes with the distance between them. “I’m better, Frank. I’m happy, now.”

He nods, repeating that mantra in his head. _Gerard is happy. Gerard is happy._ He can’t risk that happiness by burdening his best friend with the news that he’s got a gay crush on him-- correction: that he’s head over fucking heels in love with him. That all he wants is for Gerard to be happy; and if Gerard is happy being single and making Christmas cookies with Frank, then Frank is going to be the best friend and join in on the festivities. _Because Gerard is happy._

He’s happy, and Frank’s in love with that happiness.

“Good,” Frank hears himself saying, “b-because….”

But he can’t finish his sentence because just thinking of last year is painful for the both of them. The addiction. The pills. The booze. The time Frank saw Gerard’s razor kissed skin and the two screamed and yelled and Gerard gave himself another cut just to make it through the night. Later on when Gerard fell asleep and Frank dared to give himself the same cut out of guilt.  
He’s still never told Gerard what he did to himself, but he has a feeling Gerard knows anyway. After all, the scar matches Gerard’s.

_Telling secrets when your mouth don’t feel like talking._

“What do you want for Christmas?” Gerard changes the subject, calculatedly.

Frank shrugs, resisting the urge to say, ‘you’. “You know what I like.”

“But you have everything you like.”

Again, Frank resists the urge. Finally, with an air of resignation, he says, “Surprise me.”

Gerard snorts, “There’s no surprising you. I swear you can read my fucking mind sometimes. You know me too well.”

_And I’ll be your Lloyd Dobbler._

“The perks of being my best friend.” And Frank hates how that word tastes on his lips. Bitter. Sharp. Cutting.

“Who says you’re my best friend?” Gerard jokes; and Frank remembers Bert, from a lifetime ago, and how close the two of them were, how left out he felt and how he watched on as the two of them spiral downwards into a black hole of painkillers and alcohol. Remembers practically pining away for one glance from Gerard that proved he hadn’t been replaced.

_With a boom box out in the street._

“I’m kidding, you know?” He eyes Frank sceptically, the rich hazel of them tempting Frank to walk over and kiss Gerard in the middle of the winter afternoon with the vivid smell of sugar cookies in the air around them and the faint smells of morning coffee and everything that is Gerard and New Jersey Christmases and home. “I’d never bake cookies with someone else.”

Frank chuckles as Gerard decides to start on the second batch.

Looking up, he finally catches Frank’s eye; and for a split second, Gerard’s eyes are the most honest ones Frank’s ever seen. But it’s all a person could ever ask for, is for perfection to extend for a single second; and when Gerard looks away, Frank still finds himself lost and homesick in all the ways he never used to be.

“It’s not gay, Frank, shut up.” His laugh is the way it used to be, but Frank’s just isn’t anymore.

Gerard is happy, and Frank is in love.

_And I’ll be there if you need someone._

Gerard is happy, and Frank is very near heartbreak.

_Even if he isn’t me._

“Mix up some icing,” Gerard commands, decorating yet another tray with the shapes of the season that don’t feel as familiar as they did thousands of miles away and a lifetime ago.

But Frank does what he’s told, regardless, because it makes Gerard smile for them to do silly traditional stuff like this. Because when Gerard proposed the idea of having a traditional Christmas and spending it with Frank, the idea was too good for him not to leap on.

When he agreed to it, though, he thought it would be more like their holidays in Newark. Wild and crazy and something very dear because they were both teenagers and both best friends and dreaming of where to go from nowhere. Now they’re here, and Frank still feels empty.

It feels domestic, what the two of them are sharing. Not wild and crazy and something two best friends who could fall in love would experience.

_Lying in your bed._

“Do you ever think there could be more to Christmas?” Frank asks. He doesn’t dare bring up winter romance.

“Of course, Frank,” Gerard answers back, looking up from the tray of dough, “This is just day one of the festivities, remember?”

Frank rolls his eyes. “Ooh, you wild thing, you.”

“Call it a mid-life crisis, then,” Gerard jokes, knowing how much Frank enjoys poking fun at the age difference between the two.

And for as ‘wise’ and ‘aged’ as Gerard should be, he still doesn’t get it. Still doesn’t get that there might be more to their friendship than a fucking domestic Christmas and chatting over cookie batter like there’s not all this history between them.

Oh, and sexual tension, Frank thinks through a hazy mind of flashbacks of how close him and Gerard really are. Of open-mouthed kisses with thousands of teenage girls and how nitty-gritty and rock n’ roll it was. And how Gerard tasted like sweat and Frank tasted like sweat and how he’d never felt anything as hot in his entire life.

_As lights dance across the ceiling._

“Careful you don’t pop a hip, Grandpa,” Frank jokes, dryly, as the only heat in the room is that of the sweltering hot oven.

“I’m not that old,” Gerard chides, abandoning the cookies for Frank. Abandoning the domestic cooking for a chance to dip his finger in the icing and trail if down Frank’s cheek.

And Frank smiles because this is the kind of fun and chemistry he remembers from Newark. Where they were young and dumb and in love (or at least Frank was). Where they’d run around, whinging snowballs at each other, and Mikey, until it was time to come in and they’d practically collapse on each other from the exhaustion of the holidays.

“What’re you going to do now?” Gerard taunts, almost wickedly, his coffee-and-cookie dough flavoured breath splaying down Frank’s icing-covered cheek.

_I listen to you breathe._

Without another thought, Frank’s dipping his hand into icing and pressing it to Gerard’s face. And Gerard’s laughing, a real laugh that brings them back to New Jersey. New Jersey, with its hopelessly romantic hold over Frank’s heart and its hopelessly nostalgic hold over both their minds. New Jersey, where nothing mattered but dedicating all their time to the snowy weather and trying to keep warm by the fireplace and going to bed weighed down with hot chocolate and cookies and everything that reminds them of Christmas, now.

_Toss and turn in your sleep._

“You fucker,” Frank laughs, but he really doesn’t care because now the both of them are young again and that’s all that matters. Not the icing for the cookies all over Frank’s face or the way it’s caked in Gerard’s hair or the way the two of them are now on the kitchen floor, struggling to smear an entire spoonful on the other.

“Says the man who looks like he just got out of a gay orgy,” Gerard laughs along with him, looming over him like he had when they were kids and Gerard was the biggest inspiration in his life because he was so unlike anyone Frank had ever met before.

So confident in himself….

_And I wish that you’d believe._

“Yeah, well, you don’t look too straight either, darling.”

“It’s not gay, Frank,” Gerard says, like a broken record.

Another laugh falls from Frank’s mouth. “Gerard, you wouldn’t know gay if it danced naked and blew the guy in front of you.”

Gerard’s about to retort, but Frank manages to gain the upper hand and force the icing-filled spoon right into his mouth, silencing the brewing retort.

Even though Frank’s won, he can see the corners of Gerard’s mouth twitch with a smile; and he feels a sense of accomplishment: bringing this side of Gerard back into his life. The carefree Gerard who would laugh and roughhouse with him and act like the teenager that’s still inside him.

Only Frank could ever bring that side out in him, though, he concludes.

_That I’ll be your Lloyd Dobbler._

Only Frank could ever take the numb man, from years of being a monstrous alcoholic and addict, and turn him into a giggling teenager.

All with some fucking icing and gay jokes.

_With a boom box out in the street._

“Don’t spit. It’s kind of a turn-off,” Frank goes on, watching how Gerard glares at him playfully before swallowing down the icing.

“You know, what if I were gay, Frank?” Gerard asks.

Frank’s stomach does somersaults. “Are you?”

“I don’t know,” he finally says, mindlessly settling on his friend, “I don’t think I really have a sexual preference… you know? Love is love.”

_And I’ll be there if you need someone._

“Yeah.” Frank’s voice catches in his throat because this all seems too good to be true. Gerard on top of him and confessing that love is love, and Frank has to do everything in his willpower not to kiss him and ruin the recovering friendship between them.

“I mean,” he goes on, “there’s gotta be that one person out there who turns off all the bad noise. Who makes all the bad things go away.”  
Even if he isn’t me.

“You’ll find them.” Frank catches Gerard’s eye, a second of that aforementioned perfection that stretches on and on because Frank is watching all the Christmases past floating in Gerard’s eyes. The two of them and everything between them. The two of them and everything that could be love, but isn’t.

Gerard’s eyes tell a story of how Frank fell in love with him. And they paint a picture of all the love that isn’t reciprocated.

_There’s a Norman Rockwell painting._

Finally, Gerard breaks the gaze and reaches up to grab a towel, offering it to Frank so that they can clean the mess off themselves. Because, in truth, they do look like they’ve stepped out of an orgy; and it also doesn’t help that Gerard’s still laying on Frank, comfortable as ever to settle against his friend on the kitchen tile and make his stomach twist and make his entire reality aflame with a clarity of senses.

All of Gerard, amplified. The sweet smell of frosting lingering on his skin and the smooth way it feels when Frank runs his hands down his cheeks to catch the stray leftovers he’s missed. The hitched breathing of Gerard as Frank continues his ministrations, and a part of him is saying that he’s making Gerard uncomfortable- but the other part can’t stop. And then there’s the way Gerard’s eyes are boring into his, trying to tell him something that Frank is just missing.

He won’t look into them because Gerard’s eyes are Frank’s heartbreak.

_Two kids sitting on a bench._

“Frank?” Gerard murmurs.

He merely hums in acquiescence.

“I think the cookies are done.”

Frank chuckles, “You’re the one laying on me.”

_It reminds me of all the stupid things._

Gerard still doesn’t move. And Frank finds himself more bold as he trails his fingers down Gerard’s jaw line and to his collarbone, tracing all those contours of Gerard that he knew all those Christmases ago.

And Gerard, he’s enamoured in all of this. His breaths are still short and cautious, as though the sound of anything but their two rapid heartbeats would ruin this moment. As though anything but the two of them on the kitchen floor, together, would ruin this moment.

_I’d like for us to share._

However, when Frank’s fingers find their way to Gerard’s wrist, gently tugging back the sleeve of his shirt, Gerard finally shifts. He finally breaks away from whatever the two of them were immersing themselves in to pull the cookies from the oven.

Frank sighs.

_But I don’t care._

This Christmas isn’t going to be the same because Gerard is happy and Frank is in love.


	3. Tree

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Because, Gabe,” William explains like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. Then again, it might be; Gabe’s never been good in relationships and William’s probably written the book on it, “this is our first Christmas together as a couple. It has to be the best. Because if we can’t even do Christmas together, how are we going to survive the other holidays?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gabe and William belong to each other, respectively and not me (unfortunately).

The snow crunches under his feet and the wind bites at his skin and he’s tripping over another stray root in the ground and growling and kicking and stomping along anyways and thinking it’s too fucking early to be out in the middle of nowhere hunting down ‘the perfect Christmas tree’- as William had put it while coaxing him out of bed in the early hours where normal people sleep and William Beckett wakes. Though, it’s not as if Gabe has ever been able to deny William anything.

_“Please, Gabe?” William pouts in the early morning, toes curling in their bed and hand stroking Gabe’s hip in soothing circles. And Gabe has to admit, he’s too damned good at persuasion and getting his way. “You promised me. The perfect tree for our first Christmas together.”_

_Gabe shuts his eyes and shields himself from the sunlight filtering in through the window and staining their sheets the colours of true love. He wiggles back into the warm body and tries to ignore William’s attempts to pull him out of bed._

_“We’ve spent other Christmases together,” Gabe mumbles into the pillow and trying to burrow into the warmth of their bed even more so. It would be criminal to leave the heat of the bed and enter the cold realm of winter reality where William’s body isn’t pressed against Gabe’s and their breathing isn’t synchronized melodies in the sheets and they’re not attached at the hip in the land of dreams._

_“Yeah,” he agrees, “but this is our first Christmas together-together. I want it to be special.”_

_Gabe suppresses a snort. “You know what would make it special, Bill?”_

_“Hm?”_

_“For you to let me sleep.”_

_“Gabe!” And then William’s pulling the sheets back and exposing Gabe to the cold air of the fresh December morning and pushing him onto the ground._

_“Fucking-!” Gabe groans when he thuds to the ground and looks up to see Bill’s face smirking and snickering._

_Eyes hopeful, he asks, with an air of poisoned honey, “Awake now?”_

And that’s how Gabe ended up trudging through fields of pine, trailing after William, who’s almost deliberately ignoring him in search of ‘the perfect tree’. In a way, Gabe can’t blame the kid for wanting every little aspect of their first holiday together perfect; but he also knows William’s going to milk it beyond belief and by the end of the holidays Gabe will have given his lover his balls on a plate… with a bonus ribbon, just because it’s the holidays, he thinks.

“Not falling asleep back there, are you?” William’s voice cuts through the frosty air, ringing in Gabe’s ears like something sweet, yet torturous, because anybody so fucking perky and chipper this early in the morning, like William Beckett, deserves to die a slow and painful death.

“Unfortunately not,” he finally answers with a hearty yawn, looking around him at row-after-row of trees and thinking that they all look the same.

“Cheer up.” William turns around, walking backwards and offering Gabe one of his sweetest smiles. “I’ll make it worth your time, I promise.”

“I thought we both agreed no more bargaining for sex?” Gabe quirks a brow.

William laughs. “You know what I mean, Gabe. I’m well aware we’re not whoring ourselves out for each other anymore.”

“Babe, you’re always a whore for me,” Gabe tells him through another yawn and a glance at another Christmas tree and wondering if they passed that same one only miles behind them.

William just shakes his head in disbelief. “If you get hard in the middle of a fucking Christmas tree field….”

“…I could just push you against one of these, then,” Gabe finishes, “That’ll find us the ‘perfect Christmas tree’.”

“And get tree needles in my ass?” he asks, incredulously.

“I’d be more than happy to pull them out for you….”

“And what about sap?”

He shrugs. “Then you don’t have to worry about me jumping you in the tree field ’cause you’ll be all stuck together down there.” He pauses, studying the spindly figure of William Beckett in front of him and trying to imagine him a bit less clothed and a bit more sticky- only William knows him too well and bobs away in order to keep Gabe from undressing him so easily. And Gabe sighs, forced to keep up with the saw-wielding man prancing through the snowy fields. Finally, he calls up to him, “Though, in case the situation ever arises, I wouldn’t say no to licking syrup off your balls.”

“ _Gabe_!” William nearly drops the saw, turning around with cheeks pink from the biting wind and the embarrassment of Gabe saying things that early in public.

“Yes, Bill, baby?” He flutters his lashes mockingly because if Bill is going to drag him out of bed at sunrise to trudge through miles of tree then Gabe is going to make it worth the while.

He just shakes his head, continuing on. “You’re something else, Gabe.”

“So are you.”

“How about you stay quiet and help me find the perfect tree, then I’ll let you lick whatever the fuck you want off me?”

Gabe thinks of retorting with something witty or something that would make Bill blush but thinks better of it as he is forced to follow him into a denser field and gets hit by a few branches in the process. And never has he wanted to set an entire forest on fire in his entire life….

“It has to be tall,” Bill lists off the perfect traits as Gabe trips over stray stump and cusses, but Bill ignores him because that’s what Bill does because not only does he think Gabe is a drama queen but because it makes Gabe more than pissed when his temper is ignored. “Lots of branches. No loose needles….”

“They _all_ look like that,” Gabe complains.

“Gabe, shut the fuck up and help me.”

Gabe groans. He wants to snap back but it’s way too early, way too cold and he doesn’t want to piss William off before they get home and climb into bed and fall back asleep, wrapped up in each other.

Because that’s one of the best moments in his day, Gabe thinks. It’s when him and William are tangled in the sheets together and falling asleep. Usually, William falls asleep first; and Gabe listens to his soft snores and beating heart in order to fall asleep a little easier every night. It’s when William’s got a tight grip around Gabe, as though he’s afraid to lose him in the middle of the night, and it’s when William’s deranged little stutters rocks him into little dreams about the two of them and their future and their forever.

With William, Gabe always thinks forever.

Love is forever, and Gabe is in love with William Beckett- not that he’d ever tell him this prematurely in their relationship. …or at least, Gabe _thinks_ he’s in love with William. If love is wanting to fall asleep next to that person every night and wondering what they’re thinking about when they’re not with you (and if they’re thinking of you) and trudging through snowy fields of trees because it puts a smile on their face… then, yes, Gabe loves William.

But sometimes he wonders if love is that simple.

So instead of complaining, Gabe catches up to William and throws his arms around his waist, grinning to himself when he isn’t pushed away. Rather, William leans back into the warmth of Gabe and hums appreciatively as he rests his chin on Bill’s shoulder, lips finding his pink and frozen cheek.

“You’re frozen solid,” Gabe mumbles, “If I lick you, I think my tongue would stick.”

“Okay, Ralphie,” he laughs, patting Gabe’s arms, still fastened tight around his waist, “We won’t be much longer.”

Gabe could correct Bill and say it was Flick whose tongue got stuck on the pole, but he’s too fucking cold and William’s warm and he doesn’t want to be pushed away from the body heat.

Because, to Gabe, this is what Christmas should be about. Not ornate decorations or heaps of snow or the perfect tree, but being with the one person in the world who makes him happiest and being able to be happy together.

Then again, Gabe’s never been terribly romantic.

William, on the other hand, has written love song after love song about perfect situations.

“Bebe, hace frio afuera,” Gabe murmurs, absentmindedly into the crook of William’s shoulder.

And William, just because he’s learned a thing or two from Gabe of broken Spanish (and snappy comebacks and how to suck a mean dick, Gabe adds), sings back to him in perfect key, “Baby, it’s cold outside.”

Gabe listens to him sing the song in the field, listening to the way his voice sounds larger than life in the empty company of himself and the trees, listening to the way it sounds rich and lively even in the early hours when Gabe Saporta sleeps and William Beckett wakes.

“Bill?” Gabe interrupts, managing to press a kiss to the corner of his mouth, feeling the skin warm under his lips. “What about this tree?”

William, he barely looks before connecting Gabe’s lips with his properly and kissing the December morning into his lungs.

 

\---

 

“You owe me.”

“For what?”

“Those trees abused me, Bill. Look, these are _bruises_!”

“…and you’re sure those aren’t from last night?”

“Bill, I’m serious. You owe me.”

“Help me decorate the tree, and I’ll give you whatever you want.”

“That wasn’t part of the original deal,” Gabe argues, pouting childishly as he watches William in the midst of wrapping lights around their perfect Christmas tree, from the couch.

The house is warm, compared with the chilly morning, and Gabe has himself wrapped in a bundle of blankets, trying to evade the cold weather he hates with such a passion. And the one thing he thinks might warm him up a little is busy flitting back-and-forth with glass ornaments in his hand, dead set on making this perfect tree the most beautiful.

“It’s just a few ornaments,” William scoffs, standing on his tip-toes in order to place the star at the top.

Gabe can’t help but think of how lovely the view is from the couch, watching William reach up towards the star and showcase that lovely ass of his, as he makes a noise of reluctant acceptance before tearing himself away from his warm cave of blankets in order to appease his lover. “What’s so special about this damned tree?”

“Because, Gabe,” William explains like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. Then again, it might be; Gabe’s never been good in relationships and William’s probably written the book on it, “this is our first Christmas together as a couple. It has to be the best. Because if we can’t even do Christmas together, how are we going to survive the other holidays?”

“Skip ’em,” Gabe suggests, hanging a round bulb on the tree and seeing the way William practically glows at the participation.

“But then you wouldn’t get quite as many presents,” Bill reminds him.

And Gabe shrugs, saying before he can stop himself, “The only present I want is you.”

Silence.

He mentally curses himself, knowing it’s too early to be saying shit like that, knowing it’ll make Bill feel pressured. _Knows_ it makes Bill pressured because his face had turned as red as the ornaments on the tree and he’d shifted awkwardly on his two feet.

“You’re cute when you want to be, Gabriel,” William finally says, with an air of fondness.

But if he thinks Gabe is cute, then Gabe doesn’t know if there are words to describe William as he smiles at him adoringly. What with the way his face is lit up with more than merriment from the tree lights and the way his hair is several different shades of brunette and the way his eyes are the same. The way Gabe can see himself suspended in them and the way he doesn’t see much difference between the two of them.

_I love you_ is on the tip of his tongue, but he knows it’s too soon, knows the timing isn’t right.

This isn’t the perfect moment, he knows, because William deserves more. He deserves more than a tired-eyed man, begrudgingly decorating the Christmas tree because he was promised sex.

William deserves lights and balloons and familiarity and romance and a fucking song about how much he loves him.

But Gabe can’t give him any of that because romance never wanted Gabe, and it’s always left him tripping over his words.

“ _Gabe_.” William snaps his fingers in front of his face. “We’ve another box.”

He gives him a weak smile.

William frowns. “You want to go back to bed? You do look exhausted.”

“Nah.” Gabe shakes his head because he knows how much this means to William. Their first Christmas has to be perfect, so they can survive the rest of the year- and maybe the rest of their lives. Because Gabe can only ever think of William in terms of forever. “We’ll finish this up. Then, we’re staying in bed the rest of the day.”

For once, William doesn’t argue. Rather, his face splits into a grin and he presses a kiss to Gabe’s lips, managing a ‘thank you’ against them. 

Gabe kisses back, tasting the sweet appreciation on William’s lips and morning hot chocolate and something that was peppermint (a candy cane, perhaps) before he’s replying back in the same manner, “Te quiero.”

William doesn’t know what it means, but he smiles anyways.


	4. Sledding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spencer ignores his comment. “Did you know… penguins mate for life, Jon?”
> 
> “Do they?” Jon asks, even though he knows this; he’s just humouring Spencer and extending the time when their bodies are pressed together in a way that sends Jon’s stomach a-flutter with butterflies (or, again, it could be the weed). Because Jon likes it when Spencer’s close to him, when their breaths are synchronized and they can hear each other’s heart beats. Jon likes to think it’s them falling in love. In reality, it’s just part of their friendship.

Lacing up his boots, Jon Walker steps outside into the biting December wind, snow crunching under his feet like some delicious musical still not penned. The snow is stagnant, having exited with a decent amount of precipitation to trek through on their way to the hill behind his house. And Jon turns to the open front door where a giant red sled is jammed in the threshold.

“Spencer?” Jon asks, quizzically.

“I’m stuck,” a voice behind the sled says, and Jon marvels at how the sled seems to be talking to him. He also scolds himself for having a morning sampling of his secret stash, even after Spencer had talked himself silly last night about their fun day of sledding.

“Push harder?” Jon suggests.

Spencer must’ve tried, though, because there is a large thump and a wiggle of the sled; but it remains dormant, regardless.

“Tip it and give it a wriggle?” Jon suggests again, stepping forward to do just that; and no sooner had he done so than Spencer and the sled toppled forward onto him, forcing him back into the pool of snow, the white flakes crunching under his body weight.

“Oops,” Spencer breathes, red-faced, knocking the sled out of the way, so it’s just him and Jon and no barriers between them. “Sorry.”

Jon, giddy from weed and the winter nostalgia and the fact that Spencer is that close to him and blushing and grinning in a way he finds too endearing, reaches for his friend’s hands and clasps them in his. “Don’t we need two sleds, Spence?”

“Or we could share?” he asks, watching the way Jon squeezes his gloved hands, and Jon watches the way Spencer’s eyes shine like the flakes in the sunlight.

He’s not entirely sure what they have between them. They’re more than friends, but they’re definitely not _boyfriends_. He likes to think they are platonic, in some strange way, but ever since the Christmas holidays had begun Spencer’s immersed himself in a method of flirting like a high school girl: giggling at Jon’s lame jokes, brushing hands against his in the popcorn bowl, falling asleep with his head propped on his shoulder and snoring into his ear. So, no, Jon’s not exactly sure what they have, not sure if they’ll ever have anything, or if this is how Spencer is to all his friends. After all, he seems to be closer to Ryan and Brendon, anyways.

“I thought we were going to race?” he asks.

“Well….” Spencer bites his lip in the way he does when he’s thinking, and Jon watches on fondly- or he’s still smiling because of the weed. “You could always slide down on your stomach… like a penguin.”

“I’m not a penguin.”

Spencer ignores his comment. “Did you know… penguins mate for life, Jon?”

“Do they?” Jon asks, even though he knows this; he’s just humouring Spencer and extending the time when their bodies are pressed together in a way that sends Jon’s stomach a-flutter with butterflies (or, again, it could be the weed). Because Jon likes it when Spencer’s close to him, when their breaths are synchronized and they can hear each other’s heart beats. Jon likes to think it’s them falling in love. In reality, it’s just part of their friendship.

“Hey, Jon?” Spencer looks up from their twined hands, and his ministrations of playing with Jon’s fingers, to offer a coy smile.

“What?”

“I-if we… if we ever grow up and find ourselves lonely… w-would you be my penguin?” Spencer blushes a little at the words tumbling from his mouth, and he quickly looks down to play with Jon’s ring finger, gently stroking the spot where a wedding ring could be in his future.

Jon smiles, restraining himself from grabbing Spencer’s hand and planting a kiss upon it. “Sure, Spence. We’ll live in an igloo in Canada.”

He giggles, finally releasing Jon’s hands and climbing off of him. “Made of maple syrup?”

“Sure,” Jon laughs, standing up with Spencer and grabbing the sled to follow his skipping friend to the awaiting hill.

He treads in Spencer’s footprints, marvelling at how very permanent they are in the snow, unlike the beach, where footprints fade into the undertow. In the snow, in the winter, everything is permanent. Everything is forever. And forever is imprinted on the white lawn of Jon’s house. A heaven in its own right.

“Think of the hill like a slip n’ slide, Jon,” Spencer suggests, beginning the trek up the hill.

“An icy slip n’ slide that could potentially kill me?”

“O-or just… wound you.”

“You mean, put me into a coma?”

“O-or just… wound you!” Spencer exclaims again, jogging the rest of the way up the hill without losing his footing.

Jon follows, slower in pace because he’s got a giant red sled in tow and he doesn’t fancy spending Christmas in the emergency room, but he gets there nonetheless, laying the sled down at the top of the hill and suggesting they could both squeeze themselves on it.

Spencer just nods, chipper and happy, as he takes the seat in the back and pats the spot in front of him. “You go first. I hate getting snow in my eyes.”

Jon rolls his eyes, taking the spot anyway and retorting dryly, “And I just live for that moment.”

Wrapping two arms around him, Spencer snugs in close and buries his face in Jon’s layered back, grinning against the other’s body. Jon feels his stomach leap into his heart, and he knows it’s not a side effect of the drugs- although the urge to lay back against his friend and give up the prospect of sledding is.

“Go forth, my noble steed!” Spencer cackles, pushing them off and down the hill before Jon can protest or ready himself.

He lets out an unmanly scream, scrabbling to grab the sides of the sled and watching the yard flit by him in a whirlwind of flying snow and increased heartbeats. His stomach falls back down to its right place- along with his heart- and he can hear it pounding all over his body, a placebo of adrenaline, almost.

As they near the bottom, he leans back into the body of Spencer and swears he can feel a pair of cold lips brush against his cheek for a brief second. But the feeling is gone before he can think twice, and the feeling is gone just as the sled hits the ground, catapulting them both from the board and into the pile of snow.

Spencer’s laugh is muffled through a mouthful of snow, but there is pure delight on his face and that familiar spark in his eyes Jon witnesses when Spencer is feeling extra emotional (like when he watches Disney movies or when that commercial with the beaten animals and the Sarah McLaughlin music comes on - though that spark might actually be a tear, he comes to realize - or when he’s in a bounce house or on a playground or when he’s doing a million other childish things that classify themselves as youthful entertainment). “Again!” Spencer cheers, watching Jon attempt to shake some snow from the confines of his jacket.

“This time you’re taking the front,” Jon tells him, standing up, “and this time you’re carrying the sled up.”

“But, Jon,” Spencer pouts, running towards Jon and leaping on his back.

The older man staggers for a minute, getting Spencer’s thighs in a tight grip before regaining his balance. “Grab the sled while you’re up there, then,” he sighs.

Spencer does as he’s told, holding the sled limp against their two bodies and keeping a tight on Jon with his free hand. “Now, not only are you my penguin, but you’re my koala, too,” Spencer muses, resting his chin on Jon’s head.

“I thought being penguins was only if we get old and lonely?” Jon quirks a brow, trying not to trip over his feet and send them both down the hill.

But Spencer doesn’t have time for a reply when Jon reaches the top, and he clambers off his back, repositioning the sled for the second round of festivities. “Your house looks homey from up here,” he says.

“I did not know that.” His tone is laced with jabbing sarcasm.

“No!” Spencer throws some snow at him. “I mean… it looks like one of those storybook cottages!

“I’ll dress the cats up like elves, then, and bring Santa’s Workshop a little closer to Chicago,” he suggests, sliding in behind Spencer and wrapping his arms around his friend and relishing how _right_ it feels for the two of them to be on this hill, pressed together, and staring down at Jon’s fantasy-looking home with a sort of fondness.

“It looks so far away,” Spencer giggles because Spencer is a sap when it comes to romanticizing the world- or at least, that’s what he does whenever he’s around Jon.

Jon nods, and he’s pretty sure it looks further away to him because he’s high. And this hill is so, so high. Fuck, he hasn’t been this high since university. “Ready?” His breath cascades down the back of Spencer’s neck.

“ _Go! Go! Go_!” Spencer chants, leaning back and tightening his grip on the sled.

Tightening his grip on Spencer in return, Jon kicks them off. Flying down the hill, all he hears is the wind chiming laughter of Spencer and the squeals from such an adrenaline rush.

And maybe sledding isn’t a terribly romantic gesture to many, but Jon likes to think that maybe him and Spencer are on some Christmas-themed first date. Or not. He’d like this to be a date, but he’s afraid he’ll come off as a complete flamer by even daring to ask Spencer on a date. The only flamers allowed on the record label were Brendon Urie and Pete Wentz… and maybe William Beckett, but Jon thinks he’s more feminine than flamboyant.

They reach the bottom and topple off the sled again, giggling together when the snow once again cushions their falls.

“We should try rolling down the hill,” Spencer titters, crawling over to Jon and straddling him in perfect semblance to the two of them right outside the front door when this sledding adventure had first begun.

“And break our necks?” Jon stares up at Spencer, grinning fondly at how young and enthused his little cherub face looks. His cheeks are wind-blown, and his hair is wet with melted snow, and he looks like a puppy first exposed to Christmas. Jon, he’s not much of a dog person, but he knows Spencer is; and he’s completely okay with the thought of getting a dog if him and Spencer ever reach that point in their relationship when they _do_ become each other’s penguins.

“We’d have a break from touring,” Spencer is still giggling, “And then me and you could get matching casts and sign our names on them and draw funny pictures.”

“Brendon wouldn’t like that.”

“Why not?” Spencer asks, slowly enamouring himself in using his finger to doodle on Jon’s neck where an imaginary cast sits.

“Because he’s not part of the club,” Jon explains, skin tingling with more than just the side effects of the drugs at Spencer’s ministrations, “And then he’ll break his neck, and Ryan will have to be a one-man band.”

“Ryan wouldn’t do that,” Spencer scoffs, further investigating a particular spot on Jon’s neck that tickles. “He’d miss me. I’m his best friend, you know?”

Jon starts to say something along the lines of ‘I know’, but it’s drowned out by the laughs issuing from his mouth when Spencer keeps tickling Jon’s neck, abandoning the point of littering it with imaginary drawings.

“You’re ticklish!” Spencer exclaims, gleefully, slipping his free hand under Jon’s jacket and attacking his sides.

“ _Noo!_ ” Jon howls with eye-watering laughter, thrashing under Spencer’s weight and trying to escape him. He’s too high and too cold for this, and he thinks Spencer’s getting too much joy out of watching Jon squirm underneath him. “ _Mercy_!”

Slowly, Spencer stops his hands and stills them, one on Jon’s side and the other on Jon’s neck. He leans down and a cloud of fog escapes his mouth as he exhales shakily before pressing his lips to Jon’s.

It’s short and sweet and simple and chaste, and Jon hasn’t even a feel for it before Spencer is pulling away and blushing all the colours of red ornaments and Valentine’s Day and clambering off Jon with shaking legs.

“Spencer?” Jon sits up, and he hopes he doesn’t sound that breathless. Jon’s heart is ringing his ears, and time has stopped for a few minutes in order for him to gain some composure; but it’s not use. He’s shaking (not just from the cold) and he’s trying to keep a giant grin from his face and he’s almost praying on his life that Spencer will turn around and meet his eyes. If he sees home and storybooks and disney movie magic in Spencer’s eyes, then he knows they’ll be alright. He knows that this could be the beginning of everything Jon wants this winter.

 

Because Jon wants a special someone this winter. He wants someone to kiss when the ball drops and fall asleep beside the fire with and spend time shopping for the right present for the right person. Jon wants to give his heart to someone; and not just anyone…. Jon wants to give his heart to Spencer. Spencer Smith, the man who just kissed him in the winter afternoon. However, much to Jon’s disappointment, Spencer doesn’t turn around and offer Jon the gaze he needs to know that their relationship is everything Jon’s fantasies wish it to be.

“I’ll carry the sled up this time,” Spencer says, making a big show of busying himself with the task.

Jon sighs and falls back in the snow as Spencer begins walking up the hill, still wearing the same blush. Just as the snow starts to fall again, he pulls off his glove and traces his lips with numb fingers… trying to remember the feeling of Spencer’s lips against his.

And he smiles because the taste of Spencer lingers.


	5. Snowball Fights

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex shakes his head, blurting out, “Jack kissed me.”
> 
> Rian merely raises a brow. “You and Jack always kiss.”

“Red Leader? _Red Leader? I need back-up!_ ”

“Red Leader? I thought I was Supreme Jack Overlord.”

“You can be Supreme Dick Swallower for all I care. _Just get over here_.”

“Oh. Okay.” Jack’s response is dopey and satisfied in the way it always is when he and Alex finally agree on something. Calling a time-out and meandering across the battlefield, he drops behind the fort where Alex is. “Yes?”

“They’re winning!” Alex accuses, pointing to the other side of the field where Rian and Zack sit behind their own wall, sniggering and rolling up snowballs.

It’s the fifth day of December and already the entire city of Baltimore is enveloped in snow, a canvas the boys of All Time Low had been determined to taint with their footsteps and imprints of themselves and giant mounds that served as forts and bases in this snowball fight of theirs.

Alex, he’s snug against his own fort, right beside Jack and basking in the winter the way it was meant to be basked in by a band that likes to party too much and drink too much and say ‘fuck’ way too much. And the only way to do such a thing is to have a snowball war with each other….

They didn’t even pick teams because everyone (and not just the boys in the band) knows that Alex belongs to Jack and Jack belongs to Alex. It’s a brotherhood thing, what they have, really. A bromance, or whatever the internet is calling it these days. It goes without saying that they always get partnered up together.

“It’s not my fault, really,” Jack tries to reason, in a hushed tone, as though what he’s saying is dire for the enemy to hear. “Zack’s got a bitching arm.”

Alex snickers, “It’s from all that time he has to himself these days.”

Jack laughs along with him, chiming in, “Lonely, lonely Zack.”

“With nothing but his hand to keep him company!” Alex continues, dramatically. “And to keep his bed warm.”

Laughing, Jack lets his head fall onto Alex’s shoulder; and Alex marvels how warm he actually feels pressed against this ice fort. Or maybe it’s because he’s with Jack. Jack makes everything warm, Alex thinks. It’s almost like that bottle of whiskey that warms your stomach even though it’s freezing outside. Jack is a bottle of whiskey. He’s that fuzzy feeling in the pit of Alex’s stomach. He’s comfort and familiarity, and Alex smiles at how far their friendship has progressed over the years.

No longer are they strange and awkward teenagers in a band from Baltimore. Now, they’re on top of the world… together.

“Are you girls ready back there yet?” Rian taunts, and they both know he’s got himself an armful of snowballs to throw.

“No!” Alex calls back in a high falsetto that makes everyone giggle. “We’re shaving our legs!”

“And our vaginas,” Jack adds, just to garner that chuckle from Alex that he can illicit whenever he pleases.

Because Jack knows Alex just as much as Alex knows Jack. Jack is like the contours of his own hand, the calloused pads of his fingertips, the protruding knuckles, the rare instances of paper cuts…. That’s love there, he thinks aimlessly, knowing someone so well that they’re almost like a second appendage for you. An extension of yourself. A mirror that completes your image. Alex thinks that sounds romantic and wonders if he can write a song about that. Soul mates, that is. Because that’s what he thinks him and Jack are. Soul mates… just without the homosexual part.

He’s seen every inch of Jack, naked and clothed, and he could never imagine himself in a physical relationship with his best friend. His brother. His soul mate.

After all, soul mates is a very mental thing. A shared connection that links the two of them together. Alex sees that link every time he catches Jack’s gaze or hears his laugh or understands his quirky little mannerisms that makes him Jack.

“Alex, psst.” Jack nudges him, childish eyes wide and smile sedated like a tummy-rubbed cat. “We should take them from behind.”

“This isn’t an Elton John concert, Jack,” Alex whispers back, through a bout of very unmanly giggles because Jack’s able to produce them from him constantly. They bring out different sides in each other, he guesses. It’s a soul mate thing.

“ _Alex_!” Jack whines, scraping some snow off the fort to toss at him. “You know what I mean….”

“Fine,” Alex says, “Say you’re going inside for some eggnog or something… I think we still have some left… I’ll distract them.”

Jack positively beams, like he does every time Alex agrees with him or praises him or plays a song for him first (because he needs Jack’s ‘okay’ before he shows it to the rest of the band). Then, without any warning, Jack leans over and places a very wet kiss to Alex’s lips.

And Alex’s heart stops.

It’s not because this is unusual behaviour for the two of them. They’re both used to giving each other little kisses throughout the day: goodnight kisses, cheer up kisses and then there’s the sloppy drunken kisses that they vaguely remember in the morning. What actually makes Alex’s heart drop is the fact that he’s disappointed when Jack pulls his lips away and frolics towards the house, screaming an excuse about needing to piss.

“You pissing back there, too, Alex?” Zack calls, peeking over the top of his fort.

“Remember that time he pissed his name into the snow last year?” Rian laughs.

Alex laughs, too because he remembers he had staggered back towards the house and passed out on the back porch. Jack had found him and laid down beside him, justifying it was so Alex wouldn’t get lonely throughout the night. That was also the night they first kissed.

A hangover kiss, they called it.

It didn’t work like a pill, but he liked the taste so much better.

 _Thud!_ A body slams its way through their hearty fort and ruins it; and Alex finds himself trapped underneath the body of Rian Dawson, grinning like the triumphant jackass he is.

“Tssk, tssk. Never let your guard down, man.”

Alex shakes his head, blurting out, “Jack kissed me.”

Rian merely raises a brow. “You and Jack always kiss.”

“But I liked it.”

“I wasn’t aware you didn’t like it before.”

Alex sighs, shaking his head in aggravation and trying to shove Rian’s stocky body off of his. “No, I mean… I liked it so much that I wanted more.”

“Then kiss him more?”

Shaking his head, Alex finally manages to make his way to freedom. Rian doesn’t get it, he realizes. Rian doesn’t understand why Alex is so shaken by that split second from when Jack’s lips were on his and when they were off. Why he’s so shaken that a soul mate, who he mentally loves, could ever attract Alex physically in such a hold.

This isn’t what Alex’s reality should be.

It should be chasing after some girl, not chasing after his best friend.

Then again, reality isn’t pretty. Reality isn’t picturesque- no matter what the snowy fields around their house suggest. No matter what the winter wonderland around them suggests. Reality is Alex and Jack and this complex thing he’s labeled as ‘soul mates’.

He wishes it was just stage gay. That’s easier to explain away.

“Alex, I don’t know why you’re so confused by this. We all saw it coming,” Rian tells him, abandoning the task of chucking snowballs at him and offering him a truce.

“Saw what coming?”

“You love Jack,” Rian states simply, a smug smile on his face.

“Of course I love him.” Alex frowns at the simplicity of a statement. “He’s my soul mate.”

“No.” Rian shakes his head. “Alex, you’re _in_ love with Jack.”

And before Alex can stutter a protest (that he’s still trying to think up), Rian is jumping up and shouting ‘game over’ to Zack; and the two of them are leaving Alex in all his brooding glory.

How could he have fallen in love with his soul mate? He swore to himself, when he first coined the term, that this was purely a mental thing- a spiritual thing. A connection that set them apart from the rest of their band mates, yet drew a line from complete homosexuality. Now, Alex is yearning for just another kiss, another taste of Jack- who always tasted of fruit-flavoured chewing gum and other assorted candies. Yearning for maybe even more than a kiss, just because Jack’s body is always a fucking space heater.

Alex Gaskarth may have just fallen in love with his soul mate, Jack Barakat.

_May have._

He’s still denying it.

Why? Because this is too surreal for his likes, he thinks. This is too much like all those hopelessly romantic songs he pens and the heartaches the ink leaves proof of and the way sometimes he pens himself better hope for the future. Only… this is better than all that hope bottled because he knows Jack could love him back. Knows this could work. He’s just afraid to fall in love with his soul mate because falling love means the possibility of falling out of love.

Alex has never been good at falling out of love. He’s sloppy and angry and blames himself and brings everyone down to his level. He drinks and throws tantrums and locks himself in his room to sob through a bottle of booze. Then, when he’s good and drunk, he alternates between yelling at everyone and pitying himself until he passes out. And when he passes out, Jack always brings him to bed. Always.

If Alex falls out of love with Jack, then who’s going to bring him to bed? Who’s going to tuck him in and not give a fuck about smelling like stale beer and vomit enough to slide in beside him? Who’s going to be there with some aspirin and a glass of water and a hangover kiss if Jack isn’t?

Alex can’t fall in love with Jack because he’ll lose him.

“ _SURPRISE!_ ” Jack’s voice suddenly cuts through the empty air, mixing with the blustery wind, and prompting Alex to peek his head out from the ruined fort to see the disappointment etched on Jack’s face. “Where is everyone?”

“We lost, Jack,” Alex apologizes.

“But, Alex, it was such a perfect plan,” he pouts, falling to the snow and sitting there in all his defeated glory.

Alex sighs, crawling through the snow towards his friends, his soul mate, and taking a seat beside him. Still frowning, Jack tips over and lets his head rest in Alex’s lap, eyes fluttering shut when Alex dares to card a hand through his hair.

“I’m sorry,” he offers again.

“It’s not that,” Jack tells him. His cheeks are rosy and his lips are chapped and his face feels like an ice cube; Alex smiles because his friend looks like he’s just walked out of a Christmas special. One of those really fucking ridiculous specials that him and Jack watch out of tradition and sing along to through giggles.

Secretly, Alex is looking forward to that again. He’s looking forward to sitting close on a couch with Jack and sharing popcorn and sodas and watching Jack get hyper. It’s classic Christmas.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” He nuzzles Alex’s lap, unaware that the slight movement is warming that spot in Alex’s stomach that Jack makes much warmer than any amount of booze could ever.

Then again, booze is warm in the way that temptation and adultery and sin is.

Jack is warm in the way that is unadulterated and uncensored love.

“Jack, I love you,” Alex tests the words out, even though Jack doesn’t know what he really means.

There’s a sedated smile on his face as Jack reaches up to poke Alex’s cheek. “I love you, too, Alex.”

Alex shakes his head.

He can’t fall in love with Jack; he doesn’t want to lose him.

Jack is… well, perfect.

And Alex… well, he isn’t.


	6. Toyland

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Shut up, Ryan,” Brendon retorts, “Ride the fucking train with me.”

Brendon sits amidst the lights of the city, eyes twinkling all the shades of the holiday and reflecting all the lights hung about. His leg bounces in the cab as the world of Chicago in the Yuletide Season flits by like a past lifetime. Like a past lifetime in Vegas where Christmas wasn’t so metropolitan in their little suburb and where they didn’t have to sneak around stores incognito, in order to keep up the hand holding and stolen kisses.

  
“Stop twitching, Brendon,” Ryan murmurs, but he doesn’t really mean it because there’s a matching spark in his eye that manifested sometime during the drive.

And Brendon, being a Ritalin kid, through-and-through, laughs, falling against Ryan’s side and nuzzling into it the way Ryan hates when they’re in public. Only… this taxi isn’t exactly public, and Brendon doesn’t think he’s breaking any rules. Besides, Ryan shouldn’t flatter himself because Ryan isn’t the most comfortable of bodies to seek refuge on. He’s bony and sometimes Brendon wonders if he has paper skin or glass bones or something of the sort because Ryan always seems fragile and tense and worried when Brendon lays weight on him. He never says anything, though. Brendon thinks that maybe he’s making it up.

“I like Christmas shopping,” he goes on to explain, “I like looking for things that’ll make people smile.” He shrugs. “I feel like Santa Claus on Christmas, Ry.”

“I’m not pulling you out of the chimney if you get stuck,” Ryan says automatically. He still hasn’t made any move to embrace Brendon or even regard the boy cuddling up to his side.

“Stop being a Grinch,” Brendon retaliates, giving Ryan a few pokes in his side and wondering the best way to sneak some more food into his diet so that one day Brendon will end up poking a bit more than a ribcage.

“I’m not a Grinch; I’m not green.”

“But your fingers are long enough.” He gives up his task of poking Ryan’s side to grab his hand and lace their fingers together, heart skipping when Ryan doesn’t pull away. Rather, he looks away and the red lights of Christmas flood across his face.

Ryan makes a face, just like he always does when Brendon teases him about his ever-elongated limbs. All Brendon can do is chuckle and kiss the tips of all his fingers, watching the way Ryan’s lips curve into that smile Brendon deems just for himself.

“I love you,” Brendon murmurs against the tip of his thumb, finally releasing his hand. “I love you as much as I like Christmas shopping.”

Ryan smiles that special Brendon smile again. “That much, huh?”

“Maybe even more,” he continues, well aware that their cab driver keeps shooting disgruntled looks at them through the mirror.

“I almost don’t believe you.”

“Alright,” Brendon sighs, leaning close and letting his breath splay across Ryan’s cheek, lips slowly inching towards the corner of Ryan’s mouth where that silly grin still sits on his face. “That depends on one thing….”

“What?” He makes an attempt to catch Brendon’s lips, but Brendon keeps them a hairsbreadth distance away. 

“How good you look in a bow.” And Brendon finally kisses him. He kisses him the way he’d like to in public, with fingers itching for Ryan’s jaw and lips smiling against his and breathing synchronized with his when they pull away for that split second it takes for them to breathe. Brendon’s happy when he kisses Ryan; and Ryan’s happy, too, in a way that says Brendon can say anything he wants without crossing the line. So, finally, he mumbles against those perfectly curved lips of his perfectly not-curved boyfriend. “And only in a bow.”

Ryan’s still burning as bright as the Christmas lights around Chicago.

But he’s still smiling that special Brendon smile.

Brendon takes this as a good sign. Because Ryan Ross, happy and enjoying the holiday spirit, is all Brendon wants for Christmas. He’s sick of year-after-year of the same grumpy partner, lost in unhappy childhood memories and brooding and pushing Brendon away so those bad memories can’t be replaced with good ones. Now, approaching the mall in the backseat of a cab, Brendon’s doing all he can to get Ryan to smile with those perfect teeth and perfect lips and perfect little crinkles in his eyes when he’s happy. This year, Brendon is going to give Ryan some holiday cheer.

What cheers Brendon up is gift shopping.

Maybe Ryan will like it, too.

 

\---

 

The mall is decorated for Christmas, like it always is, with its giant tree with the giant bulbs and the false snowflakes hanging from the ceiling where the fluorescent lighting illuminates them shades of blue and white that are artificial enough for Brendon to romanticize them. Ryan, on the other hand, hates them.

“They’re cheesy,” he huffs, once they enter the mall and the crowd around them thins out.

Ryan hates big crowds, too. He hates the idea of everyone in the world staring at him. He’d admitted this years and years ago to Brendon when he had first joined the band. At the time, Brendon was only a shield, a confident voice Ryan could hide his pained lyrics behind. Now, although Ryan’s dislike of attention has lessened, it’s nowhere near gone. 

“They’re supposed to be cheesy,” Brendon explains with a roll of his eyes because Ryan needs to smile again. “Christmas is the season for cheesy decorations.”

“Expensive, useless junk,” Ryan mutters.

Brendon chooses to ignore him because it’s not worth a fight. It’s not worth tarnishing all that Brendon has worked for- because Ryan had been a complete bitch to convince to come shopping. Finally, when Brendon offered to buy him cinnamon rolls, Ryan agreed.

They walk by shop-after-shop with giant flyers advertising a good deal and mannequins wearing holiday-friendly sweaters and everything else that Ryan huffs at, dismissing it all as smart marketing, rather than holiday spirit. 

“I bet they have sales on scarves,” Brendon pipes up, hopeful that Ryan’s latest fashion fetish might be enough to pull him into a better mood.

“Brendon,” Ryan finally says, stopping them in the middle of the mall, “I don’t like Christmas.”

Frowning, Brendon huffs and stomps several steps ahead of Ryan, offering his coldest of shoulders. Ryan follows regardless because, well, who else is going to buy his cinnamon rolls? And Brendon, he knows he shouldn’t, knows he shouldn’t spend a dime on Ryan, but he can’t even think of doing something like that with all this spirit and cheer around him and potential _presents_. Brendon likes Christmas shopping; he can’t even think of being unhappy around all of this.

The way the snowflakes spit glitter all over the ceiling, the way there’s a decorated tree on every corner, the way the mall smells like warm cookies and rich hot chocolate and the way his shoes clatter on the ground in a rhythmic soundtrack that describes all the emotions coursing through his body. He loves all of this: the waves from people high on the holiday, the Starbucks employees all adorning matching Santa hats, parents tugging their kids with stars in their eyes and the snowflakes in their vision. Brendon loves all this; it’s just a pity Ryan doesn’t.

He thinks he should talk about it, ask him why he doesn’t like Christmas as much as Brendon; but they’re in public, and all he can do is try to keep up his façade of being mad at Ryan and offering him the continuous cold shower.

“Brendon….” Ryan catches up to him.

Brendon merely shakes his head, eyes attempting to stare everywhere at once. Try to look at the festive colours in every shop window, try to listen to the soft melodies of Yuletide issuing from the speakers and try to find those stars that are birthed in the playground eyes of the children in the mall. Maybe even find Ryan’s inner child that he knows is there.

…And then Brendon spots it.

It’s beautiful. The sleek red colour that only begins to define the holiday, the clashing jet black of the wheels, the sleek silver of the tracks. There’s mechanical chugs and whistles and things that light Brendon’s smile up in all the colours that the holiday isn’t. It’s beautiful, the miniature train ride for children.

“Ryan, hey, Ryan!” Brendon forgets his personal vendetta against the Grinch (who’s trying to steal all of Brendon’s spirit) as he grabs Ryan’s sleeve cuff and tugs on it enthusiastically. “I’ll forgive you… under one condition.”

“I wasn’t aware you were ever really mad at me?” Ryan quirks a curious brow.

“Shut up, Ryan,” Brendon retorts, “Ride the fucking train with me.”

“Brendon, that’s for _kids_.”

“There are grown-ups on it.” Brendon points.

“Parents.”

Now, Brendon is desperate to make his plan work because he knows giving Ryan a memory his childhood lacks could be the key to bringing cheer to that frowning face- the frowning face that should have that special Brendon smile on it all the time. “Pretend to be my parent, then.”

“That would be pedophilia,” Ryan says, “Besides, Pete looks more like your parent than me.”

“That’s because Pete _is_ a pedophile.” They both smirk because it’s true.

“Brendon, no.” Ryan is stubborn. He’s always stubborn. Brendon hates it; but he loves Ryan. “I am not riding a little train with you in the middle of the mall.”

Brendon pouts. “Please, Ry?”

Though, he doesn’t really have to beg again because the pout is already doing its job. Ryan’s guard is falling down, his face is softening and his shoulders are slumping, bending to Brendon’s will like he always does.

“I love you, Ry!” Brendon squeals with delight, nearly pouncing on Ryan and enveloping him in a tight embrace, arms around his neck and lips dotting kisses up his cheek. “Thank you, thank you, thank you! I’ll wear a bow on my dick for you this Christmas and jump out of a present to pay you back.”

Snickering, Ryan hugs him back just as tight, even if it’s a bit uncertain (because he’s still not entirely sure about the public displays of affection thing). “Brendon, just get your ass in line.”

Brendon grips Ryan’s hand tight and silently thanks the holiday gods that they’re on his side, and he silently prays to them that this train ride will jumpstart some internal spirit inside his boyfriend. His grumpy, grinchy boyfriend.

“Stop twitching, Brendon,” Ryan reprimands him in perfect fashion of the scene in the taxi cab.

“This is like Disneyworld, Ryan,” Brendon whispers, leaning in close. “I like Disneyworld. It’s the happiest place on earth.”

Ryan makes a noncommittal noise in the back of his throat, one of those grunts that Brendon finds all too endearing, despite the fact that it means Ryan isn’t paying full attention to him. In fact, Brendon loves all of Ryan’s little noises, those deep groans you’d never expect come out of his pretty little mouth, or the growl of his voice when he’s sick or tired in a way you’d never expect with that quiet tone of his, or even just the soft breathing of Ryan when he’s tossing and turning in the bed or reading a book while Brendon tosses and turns.

“I love you as much as I like Christmas shopping,” Brendon murmurs into the crook of Ryan’s neck as he leans in closer to give it a kiss. Early on Brendon learned that little kisses to Ryan’s neck calmed the older man, set him at ease, made him fall more in love with Brendon.

Brendon wants Ryan addicted to him. Addicted to Christmas. Addicted to them.

To Brendon’s dismay, though, Ryan answers him, “I love you as much as I hate Christmas.”

He sighs.

The line moves forward.

It only takes a few dollars and Brendon looking like some sort of excited animal and Ryan giving the ride operator a sympathetic smile before they’re being given entry to the ride. Other children and parents board with them, but Brendon’s not looking at them. He’s looking at Ryan and trying to spot a smile or spark in his eye or even a lighting up of his face.

“Ryan, cheer up. You’d like Disneyworld, too, you know?” They settle into the same cart, slightly squished together with knees knocking and Ryan’s awkward limbs splaying everywhere and Brendon giggling madly over the entire ordeal.

It’s not his fault. The giggling, that is. He had a bit too much sugar in his cereal today… or a bit too less cereal in his sugar today. It’s not his fault. The sugar rush, that is. Ryan had slept in, and Brendon was finally able to raid the sugar jar without being reprimanded. It’s _really_ not his fault.

However, when he can’t stop bouncing, even when the train begins, he’s beginning to think it is his fault.

“Brendon, this is the slowest thing in my life,” Ryan complains. _Grinchgrinchgrinch_ , Brendon thinks.

“Don’t focus on the speed, Ryan.” Brendon keeps twitching. “Look up at the snowflakes. They shine different on this train.”

“…you’ve ridden this before?” Ryan’s mouth drops open, almost unsuspecting.

Brendon nearly blushes. “Spencer squished into a cart with me last year. We sang Aladdin tunes at the top of our lungs. Wanna try?!”

Ryan’s hand clamps over his mouth as Brendon begins one of his favourite tunes to sing-along with his band mates to. Finally shutting up, Brendon leans back into Ryan again and stares up at the ceiling… like he had told Ryan to.

The train ride, it’s chugging along at the slowest pace imaginable, and they are getting disgruntled looks from every person imaginable; but the way the faux flakes glitter on the ceiling with blue and silver glitter lulls Brendon into believing he’s underneath the night sky _… on a magic carpet ride_ , he sings to himself.

Out of the corner of his eye, he watches Ryan stare at the flakes. “They look like heaven, don’t they?” he finally admits, almost reluctantly, if only just to appease Brendon.

But, at this point, all Brendon wants is a smile that says Ryan is human and could love Christmas like Brendon loves him.

Brendon beams and watches Ryan’s face light up with his. “I think they look like your smiles.”

Ryan makes that noise in the back of his throat, but Brendon doesn’t even care. Because Ryan fucking smiled over the idea of winter, the idea of snowflakes, the idea of Christmas.

Now, he thinks he loves Ryan more than he likes Disneyworld.


	7. Candy Canes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “It’s one candy cane, Frank, and it’s anonymous,” Gerard scoffs, clicking his pen and going about scribbling her name on a card that Frank thinks should be addressed to him. Not her. “You’re grouchy in the mornings.”

When Frank first wakes, he’s flung all haphazard on Gerard’s second-hand couch that smells like stale cigarette smoke, faded coffee stains and spilled paint. The scent changes, though, when he fixes his position and sits up into a weary slouching position, breathing in deep the smell of peppermint and fresh pine. It’s when he looks up that he discovers the source of smell, that he discovers Gerard bent over a pile of candy canes, on the far side of the room, underneath the tree; a single cane hangs out of his mouth as he sucks on it through his work. Frank resists the urge to giggle.

That’s one of his favourite little quirks of Gerard: the front man’s consistency to suck on things while he’s deep in through: the rim of his coffee mug, hard candy and even, on occasion, his lip. Right now, Gerard’s indulging on the candy cane, scribbling hastily onto a little card, attached to a ribbon, in front of him.

“Gee?” The groggy little morning mumbles that issue from his mouth barely make the other man look up; he’s so used to Frank waking up on the couch and asking for him. It’s routine.

Frank is staying the entire month of December, and even into the new year, with Gerard. Everyone is calling it a vacation; Frank is calling it a trip to paradise. And even though he’s stuck sleeping on Gerard’s back-killing couch and always being woken up to Gerard’s louder-than-life snores or the way he sings in the shower in the morning (Frank really hates listening to cliché eighties songs muffled behind a door at seven in the morning), he could never imagine his holidays being even better. Still, he’d like to kick the bucket on this routine of doing everything for Christmas, rather than both their happiness.

After all, the two of them, they’re indulged in this little dance with tradition, this little play of A Christmas Carol that’s going to the dumps, rather than Broadway.

“Get down here, Frank,” Gerard says without a blink of an eye. His hair is mussed and damp from his early morning showers, and there’s a rosy tint to his cheeks that Frank could only imagine pressing his lips to, just to see if he can taste the blush on Gerard. Gerard ignores Frank’s stares and pats the floor again. “Frankie….”

Frank, he crinkles his nose up, not sure if he really wants to lay on the floor with Gerard where a bunch of pine tree needles had fallen. He highly doubts it would be anything but comfortable, but then he remembers he’ll be sitting next to Gerard. And Gerard has the most comfortable body he knows.

“What are you doing?” Frank asks, trotting over and plopping down beside Gerard, leaning in close to study what he’s doing. At the moment, he’s scribbling in that messy, yet delicately meticulous, scrawl of his on some tiny slip of paper before fastening the ribboned card onto the candy cane and adding it to a pile of look-alikes.

Finishing up this procedure, he turns to Frank with a toothy grin that’s painted the colour of coffee and the colour of red candy canes. Frank mirrors his actions as he listens to that nasally voice of his friend’s, rushing out in enthused sentences. “I’m making candy cane-grams.”

“Making what?”

“Candy cane-grams!” Gerard exclaims, picking up the aforementioned sweet and thrusting it into Frank’s hand, along with a pen and miniature card and matching ribbon. “You address them anonymously to friends in the spirit of Christmas.”

“Why anonymously?” Frank asks, considering, if he’s going to send presents to his friends, he wants them to know it was him.

“Because that’s the fun of it, Frank.”

Frank rolls his eyes, but he doesn’t think the idea is as ridiculous as before. After all, Gerard wanted a traditional Christmas, and tradition is all about being hopelessly romantic and beautiful and kisses under the mistletoe…. So if Gerard wants to send sticky sweets out to his friends anonymously, Frank might as well join him.

Now he can finally put a ribbon on his suicide note.

Or his death wish.

Whichever one this turbulent flow of emotions for his best friend is going to drive him through first.

Because, quite honestly, Frank knows he’d be the best candidate for Gerard to ever have a relationship with, to be romantically involved with. He’d be better than all of his past girlfriends and, even, god almighty Bert McCracken. Frank knows he’s better than them, and Gerard refuses to see this. It’s enough to drive any man insane, he convinces himself.

Only, Frank is not Gerard, with all the demons and the nightmares and the anchors to the past; he is Frank, and he could never put his loved ones through anything like suicide attempts or black holes filled to the brim of pills. He could never put Gerard through that.

He never wants to be a walking toxin, and he never wants to be an empty syringe.

“Who have you made them for?” Frank surveys the growing pile of sweets Gerard has been working on for who-knows-how-many hours.

Gerard ignores the question, instead, tapping one of the candy canes against his knee. “I was thinking of addressing one to Lyn-Z… you remember her?”

Frank racks his brain, vaguely remembering a face from some band they had toured with. Black hair and crimson lips, short skirts and a punk attitude. He remembers Gerard being smitten with her, but that hadn’t lasted long. Gerard’s affections never last long, these days, Frank’s noticed. _Why should he be any different_ , something in the back of his mind taunts him; but he tries not to think on it because this morning isn’t about him and his hopeless crush on his best friend, it’s about helping Gerard have the best Christmas of his life. “Yeah,” Frank finally admits, carefully, “I remember her. Why?”

“She was nice,” Gerard replies, “I liked her.”

“You barely spoke two words to her,” Frank accuses, unable to help himself shooting down this idea. “Don’t you think she’d find it… creepy… for you to be sending her candy canes?”

“It’s _one_ candy cane, Frank, _and_ it’s anonymous,” Gerard scoffs, clicking his pen and going about scribbling her name on a card that Frank thinks should be addressed to him. Not her. “You’re grouchy in the mornings.”

Frank opens his mouth to retaliate, but he quickly closes it as he watches an unfamiliar glow light Gerard’s face up once he ties the card to the candy cane. Racking his brain, Frank tries to remember a time he’s made Gerard glow like the star on their tree. But he can’t. Because he hasn’t. She has. Not him.

It could be a trick of the light, he offers, but he knows this isn’t true. Gerard’s face doesn’t glow these days even under faux afflictions. His face still isn’t used to glowing with life; his body is still crawling out of the dark. His eyes used to shine like December icicles, but now they’re just empty pill bottles. Lyn-Z, her name brought colour to the shell of a being.

Frank wonders if he makes Gerard happy anymore.

“Make one,” Gerard says, encouraging Frank by nudging a candy cane toward him. “Just one.”

Unable to deny Gerard anything, especially having to do with this great traditional Christmas, Frank obliges. He picks up a candy cane and begins scribbling a useless little message with a useless name and a useless ribbon to tie the entire gift together. And then, when he’s done, he shoves it in his hoodie pocket and makes a beeline for the kitchen, desperate even for some cold coffee.

He needs something to keep him going on this horrible excuse for a morning.

Because he’s sure he there’s going to be a regret in his future.

The candy cane in his pocket is an omen.

 

\---

 

Gerard and Frank don’t talk to each other again until evening. Frank excuses himself to go ‘shopping’, but in reality he is just going out for some fresh air, to get rid of the idea of Gerard chasing after… _her._ To get rid of the idea that Gerard is ruining their Christmas together by trying to engage in a love interest, when he’s clearly ignoring Frank’s.

It had been Gerard who wanted this idea of ‘traditional’, but now he’s dancing around the boundaries in all the ways he had avoided with Frank. He’s abandoning their concept for the idea of a kiss under the mistletoe. And, although it’s not abandoning, since Gerard is still fussing over the perfect Christmas, Frank feels like it’s betrayal. They’re one in the same, anyways.

Frank isn’t Frank without Gerard.

It’s not fair that Gerard can be Gerard without Frank.

It’s really not fair that Gerard wants to be Gerard with Lyn-Z.

When they finally do see each other again, Gerard’s laying on the floor underneath the tree, in perfect reminiscence of the morning, and there’s a mug of nearly empty hot chocolate beside him, a white skeleton of a sweet sitting in it like a spoon- being that Gerard had sucked all the peppermint flavour off the candy cane.

Padding over, Frank drops beside him, laying beside him. It only feels like minutes since they’ve seen each other, not hours; it feels like Frank’s only just left the kitchen with his cold coffee in tow.

“How’d the candy canes go?” Frank asks.

Gerard shrugs, digging into his pocket for a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. “It’s not like I hand delivered them or anything.”

“Mmm,” is Frank’s only reply, reaching out to take the cigarette from Gerard and take a drag. Their fingers brush for the slightest of seconds, and Frank’s pulse speeds up with the simple gesture. He wants to grasp the hand in his and watch the smoke curl up to the yellowing ceiling of Gerard’s apartment, but he can’t because he’s not the one getting a candy cane-gram from his best friend. _She_ is. Not him.

“We should go out,” Frank suggests, ignoring the thought that his lips are wrapped around the same place where Gerard’s had been a second ago. That they’re sharing nicotine and sharing breaths and sharing everything but candy canes. He doesn’t mean now because, although the floor of Gerard’s living room is uncomfortable as hell and he’s got needles under his back and an overdose of pine scent wafting in his nose, he still feels like he’s in heaven. “For the holidays, I mean.”

“Where?” Gerard asks. “It’s cold out, and everyone is busy.”

Frank shrugs. “Just… out. To the mall or something. We could see Santa Claus together.”

A small smile tugs on Gerard’s lips. He turns his head to catch Frank’s eyes, but Frank is watching the curdling of the smoke, rising up… up… up…. Besides, Frank doesn’t want to look into Gerard’s eyes. Where once he sought warmth and New Jersey and winter nights, now all he sees is her name scrawled in cursive with a candy cane attached. All he can see is rejection. And the impending fear of regret that will choke Frank before December is up.

They lay in that silence together, watching the smoke and the way the dust in the air shines like fairy lights under the glare of the bulb. They watch everything but each other because it’s easier to explain away this tension when the smoke spells it out for them instead.

“Frank?” Gerard takes the cigarette back, watching it slowly cinder away. “I’d like to see Santa Claus with you.”

Frank smiles into the cloud of smoke around them, shielding them from the real world and their equally real problems.

Now, underneath the half-dead pine tree and under a fog of smoke, Frank sees New Jersey somewhere other than Gerard’s eyes.

Instead, he sees it in his smile.

And that’s more than any candy cane has done for either of them.


	8. Decorating

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And Gabe, he can’t help blame William fuckin’ Beckett for this.

“ _Jingle bells, William smells, Ryland laid an egg!”_ Gabe sings dramatically into the quaint living room one afternoon, providing background vocals to William’s cheery hums during his decorating spree.

He’s in the middle of wrapping tinsel around the tree when he hears Gabe’s improvised version of a holiday classic, and he pokes his head out from behind the mass of green, raising a brow in perfect ‘Beckett Bitch Face’ resemblance. “Excuse you? I do not stink.” …. “And Ryland doesn’t lay eggs,” he adds, as an afterthought.

“Of course I do.” Ryland walks into the room, having been too excited at the idea of a real Christmas tree with shedding needles and sappy branches and evergreen scent, compared to the artificial trees Victoria adorns her apartment in, to resist coming over to help decorate. “How do you think I made breakfast this morning?”

William crinkles his nose and goes back to his tinsel, making sure to hum another Christmas tune out of the ears of Gabe’s ears. Gabe, of course, hears it but doesn’t comment or make up some mocking lyrics because he knows how high-strung and tense William’s been- eager to make their first Christmas together the perfect Christmas.

Gabe, on the other hand, only cares about creating the perfect mood to admit to William he’s in love with him. He’s having a hard time, too, because he’s never been a man of romance. It’s always been one-night stands and quick fucks and screwing around with friends that meant nothing. William… William is different. William isn’t something casual; he’s something permanent Gabe needs. Doesn’t just want. Actually and absolutely needs. And ‘I love you’ is the only way to tell William this, but there’s no way Gabe can spit out the words in just any situation. It has to be planned to the perfect detail, or he’ll mess it up.

He messes up everything he touches. The one good thing he’s ever done right in his life is Bill. He can’t lose him.

Vaguely, he wonders if Ryland would have any advice to give. After all, there has to be a reason Victoria Asher stays with an awkward, clumsy man who often mixes up his alter egos and has the attention span of a teaspoon….

“Ryland, help me put lights up around the house. Give Bill a break from our shenanigans.” Gabe picks up the lights as he references the many catastrophes Gabe and Ryland have already caused earlier, nearly upsetting his OCD-driven boyfriend to the point of a panic attack.

“The tree fell over on accident!” Ryland exclaims, picking up another bundle of lights, anyways.

“Yeah,” comes Bill’s sardonic voice from behind the tree, “and the stove set itself on fire.”

“Now you’re getting it!” Ryland smiles, big and overly-toothy, not daring to mention the breaking of several glass ornaments, the near strangulation of Gabe by the Christmas tree lights or the Paper(cut) Snowflake Incident of 2007.

“Just….” William pokes his head out from behind the scene, eyeing the two of them warily. “Don’t bring the roof down, okay?”

Gabe grins, parading over to him and pressing a kiss to his lips as he shrugs into his jacket. “We’ll refrain from domicile debauchery just for you, Bilvy.”

“Thanks,” William mutters, almost shyly, pecking Gabe’s cheek.

“Come now, Gabriel.” Ryland beckons him. “Bring the ladder… and don’t let it hit you where the good William Beckett sticks it in you.”

Gabe snickers, and William blushes a deep shade of red before he and Ryland are leaving with the strands of lights (Gabe trailing off for only a second to retrieve the ladder) before the two of them are setting it up against the side of the house.

“So….” Ryland rocks back-and-forth on the balls of his feet. “How do we set up lights?”

Laughing, Gabe shakes his head. “I have no fucking idea.”

“Then why’d you offer to hang these for your boyfriend?” Ryland asks, “It’s not like you have anything to gain…. Unless the blushing bride-to-be is preaching abstinence?”

This time, Gabe feels the colour flush to his face and he stares at his shoes in the snow. “Shut up, Ryland. We’re not getting married.”

“But you want to.” Ryland points out.

And, yeah, Gabe kind of does. He admits this to Ryland with a roll of his shoulders.

“And you’ve dragged me out here to ask for help in proposing, haven’t you, Gabanti?”

“Well… not exactly. I- I haven’t even told William I love him, yet.”

“…what?” 

He feels under pressure and feels like, some how, he’s gotten this whole relationship-thing wrong. But he doesn’t want to think about that. All he wants to think about is him and William and… _William_. With his dark hair and dark eyes and long legs and skinny torso and that fucking smile Gabe absolutely melts for…. “I want it to be perfect, you know? And. Well. Nothing ever feels perfect compared to him.”

“That’s why you should aim low.” Ryland claps him on his back.

“Is that what you did for Vicky?”

“No, but I’m sure that’s what she did for me,” he laughs. 

“I’m having a crisis here, man,” Gabe averts his attention back. After all, no one wants an obsessing Gabe Saporta on their hands. It’s ugly… worse than William Beckett obsessing over things. At least everyone is used to William freaking out; Gabe, well, no one could ever be used to _that_.

When Gabe obsesses over things, he gets crazy. He stays up for nights on end (not that he doesn’t, already, with his and Pete’s Insomniac Club) and doesn’t eat and paces (Gabe never paces) all around the house and drives William insane. Maybe they’re already married….

“Right, right.” Ryland shakes his head. “Gabe… just say it to him. I doubt the kid’s going to run for the hills. He’s stuck with you this long, hasn’t he?”

“But it has to be perfect… like him!” Gabe exclaims. “A-and William wants the perfect Christmas, so I have to do it _soon_.”

“I don’t know what to tell you, Gabe. Ask Nate.”

“Already did. He told me to tie some mistletoe to my dick.”

“Ask Suarez.”

“Already did. He told me to tie some mistletoe on William’s dick.”

“Ask Vicky.”

“Already did. She told me to hang some mistletoe.”

“Am I the last to know?!” Ryland gapes, affronted.

“And the only one not to suggest mistletoe,” Gabe adds, clapping his friend on the back, grabbing a string of lights and beginning his ascent up the ladder. “Grab the light clips and come up.”

“Why don’t you ask the rest of Cobra first?”

“Because the rest of Cobra didn’t nearly wet their pants when they heard Bill and I were decorating for Christmas,” Gabe retorts, trying to figure out how the fuck he’s supposed to hang lights up.

“Do they go over or under the gutter?” 

“Where does William usually go during sex?” Ryland asks, just because he loves jokes about the internet-crazed ‘Gabilliam’. Gabe thinks Ryland hangs online too much.

“Under… right,” Gabe mutters, feeling the smirk of Ryland from below him. “Hand me up a light clip.”

Ryland hands him up one.

….

“What the fuck is this?”

“I believe we call those light clips, these days.”

“H-how do you use them?” Gabe is so confused. He wonders if he should quit now and ask for Bill’s house before ruins the lights or the house… or worse… William’s Christmas.

Ryland mumbles something along the lines of ‘move over’, and then Gabe feels light nudging before Ryland is squeezing up on the same step as him, surveying the mystery of light-hanging. Both of them are stumped, but Gabe’s determination and persistence outweighs his incompetence.

He’s going to give his William the best fucking Christmas of his entire life… and he’s going to say ‘I love you’ before the weeks are up.

First, though, Gabe needs to figure out how to hang up lights.

“Ryland… stop shoving me.” Gabe nudges back because, honestly, he can’t concentrate when his neck is being breathed down.

“I’m not shoving, Gabe. I’m _investigating._ ”

Gabe rolls his eyes. “Okay, Guy Ripley.”

“You’ve wounded me, Gabanti,” Ryland sighs with mock hurt. “I can’t even call upon the power of the Cobra to bring out my better half anymore. I’m absolutely _wounded_.”

Swatting the back of his head, the two of them try to figure out how the lights and the light clips and the house all work in a symbiotic relationship. Because nothing they’re doing is working. In fact, _all_ they’re doing is handing the light clips back-and-forth and taking turns to lean in close and hold the lights up to the house for surveillance.

They hardly notice the swaying of the ladder beneath them.

Until it’s too late.

Until the ladder tips over on them and Gabe grips the house for support, while Ryland grabs Gabe’s waist for support.

“ _Fuck!_ ” Gabe kicks his legs, tightening his grip on the gutter and hanging on for dear life. “ _Help_!”

“No one can hear you….” Ryland sings up to him. “And stop kicking. That’s my dick you’re knocking against!”

“And that’s my ass your face is cushioned against,” Gabe shoots down, wiggling again in hopes that the ladder will magically come back to them.

“Oh, it’s quite delicious, Gabriel,” Guy Ripley tells him, tightening his grip around Gabe’s waist.

And Gabe, he can’t help blame William fuckin’ Beckett for this. Him and his perfect Christmas and his perfect self and Gabe’s need to fulfil every single wish of his. Besides, it’s easier to blame his own stupidity on William.

Bill should know Gabe can’t do simple tasks without fucking them up.

“ _Help!_ ” Gabe yells again, hopelessly hoping Bill can hear him as Ryland presses closer to his ass.

 

\---

“And again!” 

Gabe’s about to open his mouth to belt the lyrics of an N’Sync song that they had been singing for the past (how long has it been? Minutes? Hours? Days?) when a voice interrupts them. 

“ _What_ are you two doing?”

Gabe’s heart leaps. “Bill, we’re stuck.”

“And your pants are falling down,” he observes from the ground.

“…sorry,” Ryland offers meekly, but Gabe doesn’t even care.

Because Bill is here and going to save Gabe, just like he always saves Gabe, and he can even hear a chuckle in his voice, which means he isn’t upset at the fiasco the Christmas lights have turned into. Instead, he props the ladder up for them, and the two of them clamber down to the paradise that is the ground.

“Fuck, Bilvy, my arms hurt,” he mumbles; and the second both his feet are on land, Bill fixes his pants and pulls Gabe into a hug that warms his numb face.

William’s body is warm and layered in thick coats. He smells like cocoa and pine and Gabe finds it endearing. He breathes him in like oxygen. William is his oxygen. His life. His _Billiam_.

“I’m sorry, Gabe,” William coos as Ryland slinks into the safety of a warm house where he isn’t forced to cling to Gabe’s ass all day.

“I’m cold.” He buries his face into the crook of William’s neck, breathing in that familiar scent of Bill and clinging to him with his shaking body. A part of him wants to tell Bill that he loves him for rescuing him, but the scene isn’t right.

The lights are not up. Gabe’s cold and sore. And William doesn’t have a decorated house for Christmas. Setting the stage sucks, Gabe comes to realize, and he doesn’t know how Ryland ever pulled it off with his girlfriend.

“If you didn’t know how to put the lights up, why’d you offer?” William dots kisses up Gabe’s cheek. “I could have paid someone to do it.”


	9. Winter Wonderland

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’ll stay with you, then.” Spencer’s voice is quiet, but it’s no longer the fault of the wind. Now, it’s the fragility of the moment neither want to shatter.
> 
> He swears Spencer’s hand becomes a part of him when he grips it tighter and tighter, hoping that Spencer means every single word coming from his mouth and hoping that Spencer won’t run away again. Finally, he stops them in the middle of the trail, looking back at all the steps that led them to this moment. A part of him wants to photograph those footsteps in the snow. Maybe tack on some really cliché love song lyrics with Helvetica font. Or a romantic quote. Add a retro photo effect. Post it on his blog.
> 
> That’s how much he swears he’s in love with Spencer at the moment.
> 
> “Spencer,” Jon warns, with a laugh in his voice, “you better mean that.”

Jon doesn’t see Spencer in what feels like an eternity- though, in reality, it’s only been a few days. After the sledding adventure, Spencer had flitted over to Ryan’s for a few days of hermiting around. Jon, well, he had turned himself into one, as well. Oh, and he’d bought a cat… and some more weed… and another cat.

He blames Spencer for the impulsive buys, he really does. Spencer had left him hanging after that kiss, and Jon hadn’t been sure whether they were forever destined to be awkward friends who only see each other a handful of times over the year, against their own wishes. And, in order to ease his mind at the prospect of living his entire life alone and unwanted, Jon had gone out and bought a cat. Smoked some weed. And instead of buying a bag of chips or ten tacos, like any stoner would do, he went out a bought another fucking cat.

The first, he had fondly nicknamed James. Because that’s Spencer’s middle name. The second, he had nicknamed Frodo. Because Lord of the Rings had been on the television.

And that’s what Jon’s life had become: burnt pancakes for breakfast, illegally downloading his own album online because his player broke and going over the kiss in his head a million times throughout the day… or whatever number actually helped him sleep at night.

Then, one afternoon, he hears a knock at the door; and Jon grins because he knows it’s Spencer (Spencer always knocks three times in a short, staccato rhythm). Jon once told him he should write a song with that beat, but Spencer reminded Jon he doesn’t write songs. Ryan does. Anxious and nearly twitching, Jon doesn’t waste a second of trying to appear like he’s busy and not waiting for Spencer to visit him because, fuck it all, he has been waiting to see that round face and awkward smile and twinkling fairy light substitute that his eyes have turned into ever since the coming of December. Jon’s been waiting to see Spencer for days, and he’s finally _here_.

Nearly tripping over one of the cats, Jon makes it to the front door and throws it open, smiling giddy-like and losing any sense of eloquence there at the sight of him. “Hey,” he breathes out, giddily, cursing at himself to speak more syllables.

Spencer’s grin matches his, despite his body language being cautious and careful. “Hey.”

“Wanna come in?” Jon asks and wants to smack himself in the face because that’s a stupid thing to say. It’s cold out; of course Spencer wants to come inside.

“Wanna come out?” he counters, surprising Jon, silencing him.

Jon just bites his lip, rocking back-and-forth on his heels, staring at Spencer’s heavily-coated form and the little pink blush of his frozen cheeks and the way his nose is running a bit from an upcoming cold and the way his fingers tremble through the warmth of their gloves. And that’s when Jon realized: Spencer planned this.

Knowing Spencer, though, he doesn’t plan _anything_. He doesn’t plan anything unless it’s more than important. That makes Jon’s grin grow, spreading to half his face as he nods, because he knows he’s important now. _This_ is important.

“Let me get a coat,” Jon tells him. “Come in for a second.”

Spencer follows, closing the door behind him in a burst of cold air as Jon runs to his bedroom to hunt down a coat. Following behind him is Spencer’s voice, chipper and perky, as always, but with another emotion Jon couldn’t name for the life of him. Curiosity? Fondness? “You got a new cat?”

“Yeah. Got two,” he calls back; and after tearing through half his closet and drawers, finally slips on all his winter articles. Bundled up and warm. Just like Spencer.

“You’ve been busy,” Spencer chuckles.

Exiting his bedroom, Jon shrugs. “Been lonely.”

“Oh.” Spencer’s reply is knowing and a pitiful attempt at being casual- seeing as his eyes had found that stain on the carpet all too interesting and he’s twitching like Brendon does when Brendon eats too much sugar or finds out that Ryan gives him decaffeinated coffee (and gives him hell by drinking nothing but regular coffee filled to the brim with sugar). In fact, Jon thinks Spencer looks like his heart has just fallen to the pit of his stomach. Jon’s an expert at the feeling; he would know.

“But now you’re here!” Jon changes the subject, brightly, politely nudging Spencer out the door and letting the younger man lead him from the house. “And I won’t have to die alone in a pile of cats.” He pauses. “Or buy another cat, for that matter.”

“You need to stop.” Spencer’s voice is soft under the roar of the wind, ringing in both their ears. He’s taking him along the familiar path to the deserted bike trail that runs behind Jon’s house. “You’ll turn into a cat-lady.”

“Except I’m a dude, Spence.”

“You’ll end up on _Hoarders_.”

“For what?”

“Hoarding cats.”

Spencer turns to him with one flawless brow raised and a look that reads bitch, please. “Then why’d you buy two cats within a five-day timeframe?”

He doesn’t dare utter his real reason: of being lonely. He doesn’t dare want to watch Spencer’s face look so crest-fallen ever again in his life. It’s like watching a kid discover what heartbreak feels like for the first time, or watching a kid discover Santa Claus and magic isn’t real, or watching you hurt someone you love…. “For Christmas.”

“Jon, you’re not supposed to buy presents for _yourself_ ,” Spencer scolds him and gives him a good _thwap_.

His body shakes with chills that have nothing to do with the cold. Spencer’s touch is that magic of the holidays no one believes in anymore. “It was a two-for-one sale,” Jon lies, still chuckling because Spencer’s smile alone could only turn Jon into a giggling teenager with a crush again. Fuck it all, he thinks, Spencer’s smile could end wars. It could make Santa Claus exist. And it could repair broken hearts.

“Jon.” Spencer’s hand brushes against him through their combined layers of gloves. “I missed you.”

His body shivers, again, in time with the breeze. Smiling, he manages through the thick scarf tied around his neck, “It’s only been five days.” But he’s lying because it feels like an eternity, and he’s missed Spencer, too.

“I know.” The wind whistles again through the naked trees lining the bike trail. Snow crunches under their feet. All of these noises remind Jon of those three staccato knocks at his front door and a song Spencer will never write for him. A soundtrack for his winter. A countdown to his present. “But Ryan gets grumpy around Christmastime.”

“You could have stayed with me,” Jon blurts out quickly, then shuts his mouth, wishing he hadn’t. Spencer stayed with Ryan to get _away_ from him. Fuck, Jon wishes this stupid scarf would make him mute. Or invisible. Or _something_.

That’s when Jon feels something warm in his hand, and his heart falls into his stomach when he discovers Spencer has laced their fingers together and is swinging their hands to-and-fro like in some overly-romantic Disney movie. It’s an ethereal feeling, and Jon’s almost afraid he’s dreaming or high or anything but here with Spencer, holding hands and walking through the snow-filled trail where the white frosted branches of trees hang over like a makeshift wedding arch.

Shit, he thinks, hand trembling against Spencer’s because he’s at a loss of words… and _how can his mouth be so fucking dry in this weather_? His life is slowly turning into a fairytale; he’s hoping his ending comes when the ball drops on New Year’s Day. Some part of him, the part gripping Spencer’s hand back tightly, is thinking he might have a pair of lips to kiss into the new year.

“I’ll stay with you, then.” Spencer’s voice is quiet, but it’s no longer the fault of the wind. Now, it’s the fragility of the moment neither want to shatter.

He swears Spencer’s hand becomes a part of him when he grips it tighter and tighter, hoping that Spencer means every single word coming from his mouth and hoping that Spencer won’t run away again. Finally, he stops them in the middle of the trail, looking back at all the steps that led them to this moment. A part of him wants to photograph those footsteps in the snow. Maybe tack on some really cliché love song lyrics with Helvetica font. Or a romantic quote. Add a retro photo effect. Post it on his blog.

That’s how much he swears he’s in love with Spencer at the moment.

“Spencer,” Jon warns, with a laugh in his voice, “you better mean that.”

“ _I do_!” Spencer finds his other hand, and the two of them stand there. On the bike trail. In the middle of winter. Holding hands like a romantic movie (Jon reminds himself of his undying hatred for all things _The Notebook_ ), so he corrects himself: holding hands like a _romantic comedy_.

There are a million things Jon could do now. He could ask Spencer why he ran off or why he kissed him, could ask Spencer what’s going on between them of if he’ll be his kiss when the ball drops… but Jon could never fathom doing any of that. It’s so _Notebook_ -esque. Instead, Jon leans in and kisses him, tightening his hold on Spencer to keep him from running away this time.

  
Spencer, he kisses back, taking a short step forward to close the distance between them and soon they are flush against each other- or as flush as their bulky coats will allow them to be- and they’re in the middle of fucking _winter wonderland_ , kissing! A part of Jon’s mind, the part that wanders sometimes, thinks he can taste the snowflakes on Spencer’s lips. He thinks he can taste the chapped frost of them. But, beneath it all, he can taste _Spencer_.

The taste that had remained throughout his diet of grass and pancakes and that morning he accidentally poured himself a bowl of cat food, instead of cereal….

It’s only when a clump of snow falls from a hanging branch above their heads that they break apart, grinning and smiling and laughing.

“You’ve kissed me twice and haven’t asked me on a date, yet,” Jon murmurs because it’s something Ashton Kutcher would say in his movies where he plays the same role over-and-over again.

But Jon doesn’t mind because he thinks he might have a crush on Ashton Kutcher. 

After all, if he can love Spencer; he can definitely man crush Ashton Kutcher.

Spencer’s face is flushed from the kiss and the cold and the snow falling from the top of his head, and his face is so numb he can barely break into a larger grin. Instead, his eyes twinkle like winter constellations. “You’re awfully demanding, Mr Walker.”

“I’m not a cheap date, you know?”

Spencer hums, “How about ice-skating, then?”

Jon shrugs. “I’ve never ice-skated before.”

Mortified, Spencer gasps and starts bobbing up-and-down. Up…. Down…. A continuous stream of motion that starts making Jon feel dizzy. “You’ve never gone ice-skating?! Why not?”

“Never had a reason to.”

“I’ll give you a reason,” Spencer giggles before leaning in and pressing his lips to Jon’s again. Jon loves the taste of Spencer. It’s new, yet so familiar, and Jon really hopes this will be his first taste come January. Hell, Jon really hopes this will be his first emotion come January: the feeling of being high and intoxicated and sober all at the same time. The feeling of being in love with Spencer James Smith.

“Spencer, why’d you kiss me yesterday?” Jon blurts out.

“Jon, why’d you kiss me today?”

Jon grins. “Touché.”

Standing on that snowed-over trail with Spencer, holding his hands and watching the joy from his smile dance in those frosty eyes of his…well, that’s enough for Jon to think that maybe those fucking romance movies aren’t so bad. After all, there’s got to be a reason people fall in love.

His is standing right in front of him.


	10. Fever

“I told you. I _knew_ you were going to get sick!”

“Mmrpgh….”

“Pete, sit up. Here’s your soup.”

Groggily, Pete manages to sit up in the bed, propping himself against the headboard and accepting Patrick’s gracious offer of chicken noodle soup that he no longer had much an appetite for- thanks to the fucking fever. Pete didn’t even want anything to eat; rather, he wanted to sleep the rest of the day. It was only a few hours until midnight, anyways.

“I’m not hungry,” Pete complains, stirring the noodles around in the bowl with a bored expression on his pale, sickly face.

This statement earns him a stern look, from Patrick, who is his substitute nurse for the evening. And much more than Pete deserves. “Pete, _eat_.”

Grimacing, Pete takes the smallest of bites as Patrick takes a spot at the bottom of the bed, giving Pete’s leg a sympathetic pat. The bedroom is silent, save for Pete’s slurping and Patrick’s shuffles; but it’s silent, nonetheless, in the way a hospital is or a home for the elderly. Silent in a way that is unfamiliar and artificial. Silent in a way that Chicago never is.

Finally, Pete looks up, abandoning his attempt at the soup. All it does is scorch his throat, burn his tongue and upset his stomach even more. Not to mention, he is sweating buckets into his own food, watching the sporadic beads of sweat drip into the hot liquid. “Patrick,” he mumbles, “I’m sorry I got sick.”

Patrick, he just blinks in a surprised way. The way he always blinks when Pete manages to be so _unPete_ and the way his eyes widen whenever Pete does something that is so _Petelike_. “Pete, it’s not _your_ fault.”

“I should have worn a coat,” he sighs. Though, he’s not really upset that he’s sick… or sorry, for that matter. He’s sorry that Patrick has to stay inside and take care of him when he could be doing all his things on those tacky lists he tapes to the refrigerator.

  * _Deck the halls (with boughs of holly?)_
  * _Feed Hemmingway before he eats another pillow._
  * _Feed Pete before he eats another pillow._
  * _Finish that one book._
  * _Garageband._
  * _Give up on that book._



Now, Pete’s ruined Patrick’s list, his routine, his lifestyle. Pete, he’s just a roadblock in people’s lives. Better off alone, yet better with his friends. Or maybe just golden with Patrick. Pete likes to think he’s always golden whenever Patrick is around. He likes to think Patrick colors him in shades and hues that have never existed before. But all he sees when he looks at him is the amber sunlight flooding onto the bed. The golden color that is Patrick Stump.

“Are you okay, Pete?” Patrick asks, warily, before taking the bowl away from Pete and his twitching hands. “You look really pale.”

“Fine,” Pete lies because he thinks the fever is starting to make him hallucinate because he’s watching reality distort before his eyes. He’s watching his nightmares crawl out from the walls and onto the perfect golden that is Patrick’s sunshine. Involuntarily, Pete whimpers.

“Oh, fuck,” Patrick says to himself because he’s seen Pete sick like this once or twice, and he’s taken care of him when the fever starts to break. This is usually the point where _he_ knows and _Pete_ knows that the hallucinations start. Usually, he’ll start mumbling incoherently about fevers he can’t sweat out and how _Ryan fuckin’ Ross shouldn’t name his album after Pete’s misery… or after words in the encyclopedia, for that matter. Twiggy bastard…._ Other times, his nightmares will come to life, and he’ll fall silent. 

Pete, he’s silent.

His nightmares have always been a poison to him. A long, drawn out torture that’s like twisting a knife in his back… deeper and deeper until he’s struggling for that last breath. A poison that becomes more lethal each time it’s swallowed.

Patrick, he’s always been the cure.

“Pete,” the boy, who looks more like cherubic angel under the lights of a false and sick mind, says, “how about we turn on the television.” After all, they’ve both realized, Pete can’t distort things that are already false. He can’t ruin things that are already ugly and broken. The television portrays the lives of the damned and broken.

“It’s Christmas,” Pete whines through bouts of incoherency, trying to explain that Christmas is jolly and not ugly and there will be nothing ugly on the television. Christmas is always pretty. Pete’s imagination is not.

“We can find something,” Patrick says in vain, standing up to rifle through a mass of DVDs, flicking the television on and inserting one into the player.

The blue light nearly blinds Pete when it first flickers. Patrick sidles up next to him on the bed and calms him.

Patrick always calms Pete. It’s something they realized only months after they first met, when Patrick was snowed in over at Pete’s how and Pete was hysteric over yet another heartbreak that he had not trained himself to writing in a song at that point. Though, it wasn’t _only_ a girl he had been freaking out about; it had been lack of sleep and lack of knowing what the future held (because Pete Wentz always had to know things). 

He thrives off assurance.

Patrick gave him that assurance when he promised Pete that their little band was going to make it and when he promised Pete that he wasn’t going to leave him (and it didn’t occur to Pete at the time, but that statement might have been because Patrick was snowed-in with him….). Regardless, Patrick gave him assurance; and Pete declared him his best friend.

Now, here they are, Patrick assuring Pete that he is going to get better. That the fever is breaking. That this is a good sign. And Pete, he’s leaning into the touch and believing everything Patrick tells him.

Pete would believe anything Patrick tells him. Even his lies.

“We’ll watch a movie,” Patrick says to Pete, nonchalantly, as though he’s not seeing dancing skeletons on the television or shadowy moons or singing pumpkins. “Calm down, Pete.”

…except, Pete is seeing all these things on the television.

He’s watching a twisted tale of Christmas flit across his screen.

He’s watching _The Nightmare Before Christmas_ with Patrick.

Leaning against Patrick, he whispers, “I’m sorry.”

The screen is still a little distorted, still a little fuzzy and still alternating between slow and fast motion. It’s as close as Pete’s going to get to ‘normal’ during his hallucinations. It’s the closest he’s going to get to alleviating the poison. And Patrick, he’s the cure.

“Pete, it’s fine. I had nothing planned for today,” he lies because those are the things Pete likes to hear. “Besides we’ve still got fifteen days until Christmas. You’ll get better in no time.”

“You said I was getting better now,” he accuses, lolling his head onto Patrick’s shoulder.

“You are.”

“I still feel sick.”

“Pete, shut up.”

And Pete does.

 

\---

 

_Sometime during the movie, Pete fell asleep. Which is a very rare occurrence because Pete never falls asleep during a movie. He doesn’t let himself close his eyes until the ending credits are rolling across the screen like a personal ‘so long and goodnight’. However, the combined hallucinations and cold medicine, had weighed him down with lethargy that he fell asleep before Jack could save Christmas._

_Pete, he had a fever dream about the day him and Patrick were snowed-in._

_“It’s not that bad,” Pete explains, all chipper and smiles, as the two of them sit on the moth-eaten sofa of his basement where here-and-there drafts from outside breeze in and attack their skin. To remedy that, Pete had lent Patrick a hoodie and pulled one on around his own body._

_“Winter in Chicago sucks,” Patrick mumbles under his breath, although he doesn’t really mean a word he is saying. He couldn’t imagine Christmas or winter in another city. That would be foreign and artificial. This, this is comfort._

_“Everything sucks,” says Pete because he’s young and in his emo phase with hoodies and black eyeliner and poems about death and despair in all his notebooks. Pete’s so emo he could write a fucking poem about it._

_Patrick comments about this and tells him not to be so depressing._

_Pete tells him he’s not in the mood._

_And Patrick ,well, he offers up some jokes. “Pete, how many emo kids does it take to screw in a light bulb.”_

_“I don’t know,” Pete mopes staring at a spot on the ground._

_“Three,” Patrick answers with a proud smile on his face that looks more dorky than cocky. “One to replace the bulb. And two to write a poem about how much they miss the old one.”_

_“Ha… ha….” Pete’s laugh is a hollow echo. It’s not a bad joke, he admits to himself, he just can’t stop thinking about… life. About how he’s going to grow old and alone because his girlfriend cheated on him. About how he’s going to grow old and alone because he won’t have a job to support himself because the band isn’t taking off. About how he’s going to grow old and alone because he’s Pete Wentz and he’s insane. And who could ever love him when he’s out of his mind?_

_“So an emo kid walks into a bar…,” Patrick goes on because he’s desperate to get Pete to smile. “Then he quickly leaves and goes home to write in his Livejournal about it.”_

_That’s when Pete screams, “FUCK!”_

_Startled, Patrick blinks in that way he does when Pete does something so unPete, yet very Petelike. “I- I can tell blonde jokes, too?”_

_“I’m going to grow old and alone,” Pete complains, without thinking that maybe he shouldn’t unload all his problems on a boy he’s barely known a year. He should call Joe, but he won’t because it is Saturday… and Joe always smokes too much grass on Saturday. “Fuck it.”_

_“Pete,” Patrick asks cautiously with a squeak in his voice and fear in his eyes, “how do you know?_

_“My girlfriend cheated on me, the band isn’t going anywhere… and I haven’t slept in days!” he rambles, eyes darting around the room with a manic glint in them. “I don’t- I don’t know what I’m doing! I’m going to die here, in this basement, all alone because no one loves me.”_

_“Pete, you’re not going to die in this basement,” Patrick says because even he knows that’s a bit preposterous._

_Pete’s just being Pete, is how Joe once described these mood swings to him one day._

_“How do you know?!”_

_“Because the band is going to work,” he explains, calmly, watching Pete look over with the hope of wanting to believe him, “Because you’re going to fall in love again. And,” he adds as an afterthought, “you’re going to fall asleep again.”_

_“…what if I don’t?”_

_“You will,” Patrick assures him._

_Then, without warning, Pete is tipping himself over and laying his head in Patrick’s lap. And Patrick, he’s running a hand through Pete’s hair and whispering those little assurances that Pete thrives off of._

_“You’re my best friend,” Pete mumbles, closing his eyes._

_Patrick just grins._

_Later, they wrote their first song together. And the rest is history._

Here, Pete is, years and years later, with his head in Patrick’s lap and listening to the soft snores of Patrick that have replaced the sweet little murmurs. Patrick must have fallen asleep too, and

Pete smiles at the thought.

The fever dream is over.

The hallucinations are dead.

Pete Wentz isn’t insane… at least, he doesn’t think he is.

“Patrick?” Pete stares up at his best friend, watching him crinkle his nose and yawn as he tries to wake up.

“Hm?” He smacks his lips, instead.

“Am I insane?” Pete whispers, watching the amber sunlight dance across Patrick’s face like something he once wrote a song about… or dreamt about.

“I wouldn’t love you if you weren’t.”


	11. Caroling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What brings you away from the vicinity of the disco you should be panicking at?” Alex asks, giggling at his own joke; Nate laughs, too.
> 
> “Ryan,” Brendon answers, gloomily.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, there could be subtle Alex/Brendon if you look hard enough.

Ryan hadn’t spoken a single thing of the holidays since the train incident, and Brendon hadn’t really expected him to. It still didn’t cushion the blows that Ryan was determined to make this a miserable Christmas for everyone by moping throughout the house and watching the most depressing shows on television about gore and murder and everything that isn’t a holiday special. Sometimes, he would even go far enough to sabotage Christmas: burning cookies by ‘forgetting’ to turn the oven off, losing the batteries for the radio in the middle of holiday songs and shrinking Brendon’s holiday sweaters in the dryer. So, in a fit of anger and anguish, Brendon had gone to Father Christmas, himself: Alex Suarez.

_“Ho! Ho! Ho!” he announces when Brendon knocks at the door because, apparently, from what he’s heard from the Cobraclan, Alex had been parading around everywhere with a Santa outfit on and offering free sits in his lap._

_“The Cobra told me to spread the love,” he had announced to everyone when asked. They never questioned him again, though they had had considerable trouble keeping him from walking around the neighborhood and offering strangers free sits in his lap to tell Santa what they wanted for Christmas. All four of them were sure he’d be arrested, so Nate had been placed on Santa-duty to keep Alex in his house._

_Brendon thinks the idea is cute and wishes Ryan would get a sense of humor._

_“What brings you here, young grasshopper?”_

_Brendon blinks. “I thought you were Santa, not Mr Miyagi.”_

_He shrugs, letting Brendon inside the house. “Doesn’t matter. Welcome to my holiday brojo.”_

_Entering the house, Brendon’s jaw nearly hit’s the floor at the amount of decorations Alex had put up. On every surface imaginable, there is a Charlie Brown tree standing proud and a giant tree in the middle of the room that Nate is setting a train track around. There’s tinsel and lights all over the walls and hanging from the ceilings, there’s stockings with everyone’s name on them (from Guy Ripley to The Future Sapeckett Children), there’s even a maze of Christmas rugs and life-size snowman plushies. But the thing that really makes the grin on Brendon’s face any larger is the fake snow being spit into the room. It pirouettes across the room into his hair and falls like a blanket on the ground at his feet; he loves every second of it._

_Alex stands in the middle of the snowy living room with a grin on his face that mirrors Brendon’s. A grin on his face that just screams ‘happy holidays’._

_“Suarez, you should probably turn that thing off before we get snowed-in in our own house,” Nate suggests. “Turn the fan on, instead.”_

_He nods and flicks an oscillating fan on in the corner of the room. Immediately, the settled snow begins to fly around and dance in the room like it would outside. Brendon must be in the North Pole. This is the most magical place he’s ever seen._

_“You set this all up?” he gapes._

_“Everyone helped,” Alex tells him, leading him over to a table with a festive tablecloth and Styrofoam snowballs. “The Cobra demanded it.”_

_“When did your band become a cult?” Brendon asks, almost accusingly, but he finds it funny how actively weird they all are together._

_“Since Gabe started speaking in tongues.”_

_Brendon, he doesn’t even ask for an elaboration because his teeth have started chattering, and he’s slowly realizing how cold he actually is in the house._

_“The air-conditioner is on,” Alex explains automatically, “The gel needs to stay hydrated.”_

_Brendon tugs his coat tighter around his body._

_“What brings you away from the vicinity of the disco you should be panicking at?” Alex asks, giggling at his own joke; Nate laughs, too._

_“Ryan,” Brendon answers, gloomily._

_Alex’s face becomes serious- or, as serious as it can be beneath the white beard of the Santa suit. “I thought you two… worked things out,” he puts it delicately._

_Shaking his head, Brendon says, “N-no. We worked that out. We… we’re together. But he’s… he’s miserable.”_

_“Miserable with you?” Alex’s frown grows, and Nate takes this as his cue to leave the room with a pat on each of their shoulders. The little train he had been working on chugs along on the tracks beneath the tree branches. “Brendon, you know….”_

_“Yes, I know what you said, Alex,” Brendon tells him because, yes, he does remember. He remembers that time when all he could do was silently pine over Ryan while the older boy did everything he could to break Brendon’s hope. To break his heart. And Alex had noticed it from the start (well, technically, Gabe had; but he’d encouraged Suarez to talk to Brendon about it because Brendon had turned from optimistic to pessimistic in a matter of days and was no longer the life of the parties). Alex had told Brendon that Ryan wasn’t worth pining after if he couldn’t give a damn about hurting Brendon in the process; Brendon had agreed and left his crush buried until Ryan finally came to him one night, confused as to why Brendon was no longer showering him with attention._

_It hadn’t been romantic, but it had ended in a goodnight kiss. That was good enough for Brendon._

_“Ryan’s not miserable because of me,” Brendon explains, “He’s miserable because of Christmas.”_

_“Santa doesn’t give lap dances,” Alex blurts out._

_Brendon laughs, “What?”_

_“Sometimes Gabe comes over and insists the Cobra said Santa gives lap dances. Only… Suarez Claus doesn’t.”_

_“I don’t think Ryan needs a lap dance,” Brendon says, carefully, although a part of him is almost considering this, “I think he needs some holiday cheer.”_

_“What kind?”_

_“I don’t know. How do you make the Grinch sing with all the Whovians?”_

_“Fast-forward to the end of the movie!” Nate shouts from the kitchen, and Alex throws one of the Styrofoam snowballs at him._

_“What makes Ryan happy?” Alex asks._

_Brendon shrugs. “Not Christmas?”_

_“What does Ryan like to do?” Alex rephrases the question, eyeing Brendon carefully, as though looking for signs that he’s unhappier than he’s letting on._

_“Make music.”_

_“Write a Christmas song together.”_

_“No.” Brendon shakes his head, indignantly sad. “Ryan would write the most depressing Christmas song in the world. He’ll ruin Jingle Bells.”_

_They both sigh because they both know it’s true. Ryan hates Christmas with a passion and would burn all the presents and trees if there wasn’t any chance Brendon would breakdown at such an action. Ryan hates one of Brendon’s passions, and it’s killing him._

_So the two band members sit in silence, internally debating things that make Ryan smile and whether or not they could tie it in with Christmas. Nate came in once and suggested Brendon be a ‘sexy Santa’, but Brendon had proclaimed sadly that he’s not sure if he makes Ryan smile quite as much anymore. And Nate had quietly left the room…._

_It’s true, though. Brendon has rarely seen Ryan smile since the holidays had begun. Everything has been whispered phone conversations with Spencer about Christmastime and hesitation on buying gifts in case Ryan will throw them out upon unwrapping. They’re at the point in their relationship where Brendon isn’t sure what makes Ryan unhappier: Christmas or Brendon._

_Finally, though, Brendon jumps up with a light dancing in his eyes that is more than the reflection of those on the tree. “Ryan likes to sing! What if we went caroling?!”_

_Alex smiles and leaps up, too. “That could work, Brendon, you’re a genius.” He throws himself at Brendon, laughing and giddy from the holidays like Brendon wishes Ryan could be._

_“Alex?”_

_“Yeah?”_

_“Could I borrow your Santa outfit?”_

_Alex bites his lip, almost hesitating. But it’s Brendon, so, of course he can borrow the Santa suit._

Now Brendon is trying to convince Ryan of his plan, and it’s not working in the slightest.

“No, Brendon,” Ryan complains, channel surfing with a dull expression on his face as though he can’t pay two seconds of attention to Brendon. “You know how I feel about Christmas.”

“Yeah?” Brendon drops the suit to the ground, wanting to yell at Ryan, but trying to be fragile about the situation. “Well, Christmas isn’t just about you. It’s about other people, too, you know?” He crosses his arms and pouts.

Ryan ignores it. “I’ll get you a present, then.”

_“All I want for Christmas is you to put this damn outfit on and come caroling with me!”_

“Where’d you get that from, anyways?”

“Suarez.”

“Go caroling with him, then.”

“I want you to come caroling, too!”

“Brendon, I hate Christmas!”

“Yeah?” Brendon sniffs in a dramatic fit of anger. “Well, _I hate you_.”

Shaking from unreleased anger, Brendon throws the suit at him and stomps off without a look back. But he knows Ryan is staring blankly at the television. Their relationship might not make it past the holidays, he’s come to realize, because he refuses to do this every year with Ryan.

He doesn’t want to be miserable every December; it’s not fair.

 

\---

 

By some miracle on thirty-forth street, Ryan put on the Santa outfit and apologized through Brendon with some hot chocolate and sugar cookies. Only after littering Ryan’s face with a thousand ‘thank you’ kisses had Brendon run off to through on his costume.

Ryan frowns when Brendon exits the bathroom in his elf costume. “Why couldn’t I wear that one?”

“Because you’re taller than me,” Brendon explains, almost scoffing at Ryan’s naivety. 

“But this beard is itchy,” he complains, scratching his jaw.

“I still don’t forgive you.” Brendon gives him an icy look, and Ryan shuts up, watching as Brendon begins listing and rambling off songs for them to sing at different houses.  
Shifting and trying not to itch the beard, Ryan asks, “What if they close the door on us?”

“They won’t,” Brendon scoffs, running about the room trying to find a matching sock. “We’re celebrities, Ry.”

“Not everyone knows a silly little emo band,” says Ryan.

“A silly little emo band _on the radio_ ,” he corrects him.

Because Ryan can try all he wants to degrade their music or wiggle out of this caroling thing with that attitude, but Brendon isn’t falling for it. He wants Ryan to love Christmas as much as everyone else does. He doesn’t want Ryan to drown in the past; he wants him to look forward to the future. _Their_ future.

The doorbell rings.

“They’re here!” Brendon giggles and runs off to answer with door with Ryan at his heels.

All Brendon sees upon opening the door is a flash of green before he is tackled. Blindly, he hugs the tiny figure back until the visual of Alex Suarez becomes clear. Nate is behind, offering Ryan an awkward wave. Both of them are adorned in elf costumes that match Brendon’s and matching smiles.

“We should go caroling at Pete’s house,” Nate suggests, watching the two giddy elves break apart from each other. “I heard he was sick.”

Brendon nods, glancing over at Ryan with a spark in his eyes. “Come on!”

Ryan almost hesitates, but then he’s following Brendon out the door and grabbing his hand. And Brendon couldn’t be any happier.


	12. Hot Chocolate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And maybe Alex hasn’t always harbored romantic feelings for his best friend, but at this point in time he can’t imagine himself not feeling like this. Of course, there’s always that possibility that he has felt this way, just hasn’t known what to call the feelings before.

For the next few days, Alex keeps himself busy. He immerses himself in the idea of writing a Christmas song for holiday spirits and tries to start his shopping (but he hates shopping, so he quickly scraps the idea); and in the end, all that Alex achieves is inviting Jack over to help clean out his attic in search of decorations. After all, he’s sick of all the bitching about his lackadaisical house whenever he has visitors (though, most of these complaints come from Cassadee whenever Rian brings her around).

And upon entering the old, dust-filled attic, both of them fall into a hysterical coughing fit that only subsides once Alex throws open the nearby window to let the fresh air in- not even caring that it’s nearly zero degrees outside or that it’s snowing.

“You need to clean,” Jack tells him, poking through some boxes while Alex hunts down the ones of Christmas decorations. “You could have a dust bunny museum up here.”

Alex snorts, “I’d like to see your attic.”

“My mom cleans my attic,” Jack says.

Dropping the conversation altogether, Alex begins moving boxes around and scanning shelves for anything labeled ‘decorations’. He knows he has a box full of them. Every holiday imaginable compiled into one box. It’s not exactly organizational skills at its best, but he’s rarely home for the holidays, anyways. In fact, the tour bus with his cramped bunk and dim light feels more like Christmas than his own house does.

“Whoa, dude!” Jack exclaims, happily, and Alex hears the jostling sound of him rummaging through a box. “You have a box of _action figures_?”

“Jack, put them back,” he sighs because he doesn’t feel like cleaning up another mess. As of this moment, Jack already has three messes left out, and Alex wonders if taking care of Jack is a preparation for parenthood.

“This one doesn’t have a body!” Jack holds up an old G.I Joe.

“That’s because you launched it with a rocket,” Alex tells him, remembering how the rocket had fallen right into the neighbor’s barbeque and caught fire.

Jack grins in a pleased sort of way, and Alex looks away in order to ignore the smiling panacea that Jack always seems to become around him. It’s not because their relationship is anything more than platonic; it’s because they are as close as they are. It’s because their relationship is laughter and grins and being stupid and fucking things up and fucking things up together and not remembering when the morning lights hit. That’s their relationship, and Alex can’t expect it to be any other way.

Soul mates in his eyes.

Bros before hoes in Jack’s eyes.

It takes only a few more boxes, all thick with a layer of dust, before Alex finds the one for the holidays, haphazardly filled to the brim with an assortment of lights, wall hangings, ornaments and miniature statues. Briefly, he wonders what cheesy flea market sale he found all of this at.

“We found it at Wal-Mart,” Jack refreshes his memory. “It was two in the morning, and we were drunk.”

“Why did we buy holiday decorations?” Alex asks, incredulously, as he locks the window up and leads Jack downstairs in order for them to breathe properly and alleviate the congestion in their lungs.

“Because we would have looked like pedophiles buying Tickle-Me-Elmos,” Jack explains this all so casually that Alex tries to imagine how drunk he must’ve been if Jack remembers things he doesn’t.

Then again, Alex always seems to be drunk these days. And it’s not even because he really likes drinking that much or likes to party as much as he does when he is drunk. It’s because of the hangover. It’s because some part of him knows that Jack will be in his bed with a glass of water and a bottle of pills every time he wakes up from a drinking binge. And Alex likes that thought. Maybe he likes it a bit more than could be considered healthy, but none of it matters when the two of them are laying in bed and muttering half-sensible thoughts to the other through a bleary hangover and scattered remembrances of the night before.

“Jack, what else have we done that I don’t remember?”

“Lots of things.” He busies himself in digging through the newly opened box, nearly laughing himself silly when he finds the tinsel and starts throwing it all over the house.

“Jack!” Alex calls after him, but it’s no use. He’s scooping up the stockings and running off to find somewhere to hang them, leaving Alex alone with his thoughts (which can be a very lethal recipe when he thinks about it).

The cogs of his mind are running wildly, trying to put two-and-two together, as he wonders if Jack is ever really and _truly_ drunk when the two of them claim they are. He wonders if Jack lies when he says he can’t remember much of last night. Are these drunken expeditions more to both of them than either will admit, or does Jack know about Alex’s feelings for him and stays sober in case he does something he’ll regret?

He frowns, picking up the fallen tinsel to wind down the stair banister.

Maybe the holiday will shut his mind off.

Because Jack sure as hell won’t.

 

\---

 

“I’m spending Christmas at your house,” Jack declares in the kitchen, once the decorating is done and Alex has given in to Jack’s demands of hot chocolate. “It’ll be like a never-ending sleepover.”

“What’s so special about spending Christmas here?” Alex asks, setting the pot to boil and taking a seat at the table where Jack has been indulging himself in sugar cookies.

“Well,” he says, through a mouthful of cookie that sprays across the table, “my stocking is here.”

“How convenient.” Alex stares down at the crumb-laden tablecloth, where the newspaper sits, and he tinkers with the idea of doing the crossword puzzle. It’s asking for a four letter word for annoying and another four letter word for lover.

Jack fits both.

“And you’re my best friend,” Jack adds.

Something inside Alex glows with warmth that has nothing to do with the heat emanating from boiling kettle. Something about the thought of Jack thinking of Alex as fondly as Alex thinks of Jack is enough to make any part of him glow with warmth. A part of him wishes that Jack would elaborate and claim that Alex is more than his best friend. A brother. Or a soul mate. Or his other half.

Alex thinks Jack is all three.

And maybe Alex hasn’t always harbored romantic feelings for his best friend, but at this point in time he can’t imagine himself not feeling like this. Of course, there’s always that possibility that he has felt this way, just hasn’t known what to call the feelings before.

“Do you have marshmallows?” Jack asks, interrupting his steam of thought.

“You know where they are.”

Nodding, Jack jumps down from his chair to rummage through cupboards and starts filling the table with bags of marshmallows and candy and jars of cookies that Alex doesn’t remember ever owning. “The ultimate hot chocolate,” he explains when Alex fixes him with a skeptical look.

“You’re going to put chocolate bars in hot chocolate?”

“Why not? It might taste good.”

“Why do I doubt that?”

“Because you, Alex Gaskarth, are afraid of change. You’re afraid to branch out of your routine.” It’s meant to be a joke, he’s sure, but the words still sting.

Alex is afraid of change as much as he revels in the thought. He wants his relationship with Jack to change, but he’s afraid of the very thought.

“And you’re not afraid of change?” Alex asks.

“Nah,” Jack pops a marshmallow into his mouth and tells Alex he’s going to beat him in a game of chubby bunny.

Alex watches him plop a marshmallow in his mouth and muffle a ‘chubby bunny’ around it. He follows suit because he hasn’t played the game in a while. As the game continues on, the words become more jumbled and less coherent and Alex is losing space in his mouth for marshmallows. Eventually, he loses to Jack by one marshmallow: 6;5.

“Ha! I won!” he proclaims, loudly.

“You should go pro, then.”

“Alex, only gay people participate in sports that involve shoving things in your mouth.”

“I’ve never heard of a Professional Blowjob Competition before,” Alex tells him, hearing the kettle whistle and proceeding to turn the heat down and pour the water in the nearby mugs.

“Really? That’s where I met your mom last night,” Jack laughs, loud and annoying and almost pre-pubescent, in the way he always does when he’s laughing at his own (lame) jokes.

But maybe that makes Alex lame, too. Because he laughs with him.

“Mrs Barakat, hurry up with that!” Jack throws a marshmallow as Alex prepares the hot chocolate.

He turns and raises a brow. “Mrs Barakat?”

Jack shrugs. “If we ever got married, you’d be Mrs Barakat. Because my last name sounds cooler than yours.”

“Gaskarth isn’t that bad,” Alex argues, serving the hot chocolate and feeling more like Jack’s wife than he should. “We could combine them.”

“Gasakat?”

“Barakarth?”

Jack shakes his head, huffing, “I still think Barakat sounds better.”

They sit in silence after that, with the occasional slurps from Jack or the incessant scratching of a pen from Alex who has succumbed to the newspaper crossword puzzle, after all. 

He tries not to write Jack’s name where it belongs. Tries to convince himself that they aren’t going to be this wonderful couple who walk around with hands held and stolen kisses in public. Even if they wanted to, their lifestyles wouldn’t permit it. They’re too famous, too well known, to be able to mesh business with pleasure. To allow their private lives a glimpse on the big screen.

And maybe it does suck to know that if anything were to spark between them, there’d be no documentation. There’d be no proof they ever existed. There’d be no introducing people to Jack as ‘his boyfriend’ and watching them smile and echo pleased ‘ _awwws_ ’ that could be music to Alex’s ears. He wants all of that with Jack.

He wants the commitment and the remembering anniversary dates and not forgetting about important dinners. He wants to fall asleep next to him and wake up next to him and know that it’ll happen every day for the rest of their lives. Alex wants all that sappy shit he laughs about during movies because, well, anything with Jack can’t be so bad, can it?

He tries not to think so much as he sips at his cocoa.  
  



	13. Jingle Bells

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Gabe, you are the best thing to ever happen to me. You make me feel, Gabe.” He reaches Gabe’s lips and kisses them softly. “You make me feel beautiful, Gabe. You’re my angel, Gabriel.”

When Gabe wakes that morning, William is still asleep beside him, tucked against his body like a puzzle piece. Soft breaths splaying across Gabe’s neck, a leg thrown over Gabe’s hips and hand resting right over his heartbeat as though, in their sleep, they could become one person. As though William could actually crawl into Gabe’s skin. Fearing to wake him, Gabe doesn’t untangle the mass of awkward limbs wrapped around him; rather, he remains perfectly still, staring up at the ceiling, and listening to William’s breathing like it’s a lullaby meant for him and only him.

He lays there and just thinks. Thinks about the same incessant train of thought that has been chasing him since December came and the lights lit up around the neighborhood and the lights lit up in William’s face and eyes, and he practically glowed with December love. Gabe tries to think of the most perfect way to tell William that he loves him before the holidays are up. Already, he’s failed in the tree field, where he bitched about the morning light that William practically bathes in every day; he’s also failed the decorating plan, where him and Ryland stranded themselves off the side of the roof until Bill came and rescued them.

His saving grace: William Beckett. His savior. His angel.

Once, when William had been drunk off his ass and Gabe had been trying to put him to sleep, the younger had whispered into his ear, gleefully, _“You’re my angel, you know? The angel Gabriel….”_

But Gabe thinks that William’s got it wrong. He’d never consider himself an angel, a savior to others, even in his most self-absorbed moods. Gabe doesn’t even deserve the title; William does.  
His saving grace: William Beckett. His savior. His angel.

 _“The archangel Gabriel,”_ William had continued, giggling as he dotted adoring kisses on Gabe’s cheek, staining it with the smell of whiskey and cheap beer. _“The bringer of good news and hope.”_

Gabe had merely laughed, a breathless little hitch of a noise, as he let William continue on his drunken journey of strategically placed kisses. His cheeks… his nose… his jaw… his chin…. Then, brushing his lips against Gabe’s, he had smiled and pulled away enough to continue on with his epiphany.

 _“He speaks through the heart, you know?”_ Bill had tangled his fingers into Gabe’s hair and pressed his lips to Gabe’s. Not kissing them. Just holding them there.

_“I’m not an angel, Bill. What are you on about?”_

_“Gabriel,”_ he’d murmured, kissing Gabe fully now and managing a drunken confession against his lips, _“I love you.”_

But Gabe isn’t stupid. Besides knowing he’s not an angel, he also knows that drunken confessions mean nothing. If he had a nickel for every time he told someone he loved them in an inebriated state, Gabe could _buy_ himself an angel. That is, if he didn’t already have one tangled up against him in bed….

His saving grace: William Beckett. His savior. His angel. Only, if Bill’s an angel, then Gabe decides he must’ve tainted him and plucked his wings off the second they met. The second they kissed. The second William gave himself to Gabe. If Gabe could, he’d sew Bill’s wings back on for him, but there’s also that selfish part of him that needs William to be with him and commit to him: forever until death do them part.

 _“You’d let me into heaven, wouldn’t you, Gabriel?”_ William had giggled to him, another night, when Gabe had carried him home piss drunk. It turned into a trend that whenever Bill had too much to drink, he rambled on and on about Gabe being his guardian angel… or something as equally preposterous.

_“Bill, go to sleep.”_

_“Sing to me, then,”_ he suggested with a charming smile as Gabe dropped him onto the bed. _“Sing me to sleep, Gabriel.”_

Gabe had sung him to sleep; and if William hadn’t been drunk, that might’ve been the perfect moment to admit how much he loves him. Only… William had been drunk. And Gabe hadn’t confessed he loved him. Now, here he is, staring up at the ceiling and praying he has an epiphany on the perfect opportunity to say ‘I love you’ to Bill (hoping he hasn’t missed it).

He wants it to be perfect.

William thinks he’s an angel. Angels are perfect, and Gabe could never make it into heaven with his track record.

He thinks he could redeem himself and give Bill the perfect Christmas, but Gabe hasn’t the first clue on Christmas traditions. All he remembers growing up is staying up late to watch his dad light the next candle on the menorah. He’d never had a tree or Santa Claus falling down a chimney or leaving milk and cookies out.

Aren’t there songs out there about perfect Christmas-times, he wonders.

“Gabe?” William mumbles into the crook of his next, idly tightening the grip on him.

“Yeah, Bilvy?”

“You’re thinking too loud. Go back to sleep.”

 

“Can’t.”

“Why not?” Bill yawns against his skin.

“I’m thinking,” Gabe answers, going through lists and lists of songs about romantic holiday shit he’s unfamiliar with.

 _“You’re beautiful, Gabriel,”_ William had murmured to him in that transitional state between being drunk and being hungover, when Gabe had stood over him in the bed and handed him a glass of water and the light had turned his body into a soft shadow dancing on the walls.

_“You are too, William.”_

_“You’re my savior, Gabriel.”_

_“You are too, William.”_

_“…I love you, Gabriel.”_

_“…Go to bed, William.”_

That’s when it hits Gabe. The right song. Or maybe it’s just because he hears a bunch of carolers outside the house, belting at the top of their lungs something about decking the halls and jingle bells.

A carriage ride.

 

\---

 

“Where are we going, Gabe?” William asks, allowing himself to be tugged along through a snowed-over sidewalks of the city.

Their feet crunch across the snow in some sort of noise that sounds too fucking romantic in the winter, and Gabe wonders if William thinks the same thing. It might make this whole plan in his head go a lot smoother in reality.

“It’s a surprise, Bilvy.” Gabe brings his hand up to press a kiss to each of his knuckles, smiling against them because his plan is ingenious and he should win a Grammy for the best romance movie ever because this is almost too good to be true. This is something the angel, Gabriel, would think of. Not something Gabriel Saporta would think of.

“Can I have a hint?” he pouts, and Gabe watches the way his lips look so full and plump and red and Gabe wants to kiss that snowflake off of them.

He sighs because he could never deny William anything. “Fine. You know that song _Jingle Bells_ …?”

“Yeah…?”

It’s at that opportune moment where Gabe drags him around the corner to a small place he looked up this morning. There’s a sign proclaiming ‘Carriage Rides’ proudly, and Gabe smiles at the way he manages to make Williams face light up.

Gabe lights him like a candle, and William glows every shade of the holidays.

“Who knew you were romantic?” William coos as Gabe drags him over to the handler and pays him.

“I thought you did,” Gabe accuses. “What’s this relationship been built on, Bill? Sex?”

He laughs, “You know what I mean.”

“No, no,” Gabe sniffs, helping Bill into the carriage because his boyfriend is so uncoordinated, that with both their luck, he’ll trip on the carriage step and break his leg on their date. And that’s the last thing Gabe needs. “The damage has been done, already.”

“Shut up, Gabe,” William tells him and presses their lips together as the carriage ride begins.

Gabe smiles against William’s lips and tastes the melted snowflakes from before lingering there. He’s got this planned out to the miniscule second, of how he’s going to tell William he’s in love with him. How he’s going to seal their relationship with three words. Three words. That’s all it is, he thinks, so why do they matter so much? How can three little words make or break a relationship?

What’s so important about those three words?

But when Gabe looks over to see the lights of the holidays burning bright in William’s eyes and lips curled over his teeth in a perfect smile, he finds his answer. Those three words are only important because they attempt to sum up all he feels for William- even though they don’t invent words to explain what he’s really feeling. Those are as close as he’s going to get. Those are as poetic as he’s ever going to get. _I love you, William Eugene Beckett._

His saving grace: William Beckett. His savior. His angel.

“I wish every day looked like this,” Bill tells him, leaning against him as his eyes scan the white panorama flitting by.

Barely processing the scenery, Gabe nods. He can’t tear his eyes from William’s face. That perfect, perfect face. The face carved by angels. And if William could read his mind, he’d probably say that Gabe carved his face; but Gabe could never create something that perfect. He taints perfection. He rips wings off butterflies- or in this case- angels.

“This is perfect,” he goes on, his breath nothing but a fog of air that twist into something strangely beautiful. Because it’s William Beckett and everything he does is the epitome of beauty. In Gabe’s eyes, it’s as close as he’ll ever get to heaven.

This is the point where he could slip in ‘I love you’, but it doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t feel _perfect,_ no matter what Bill claims.

“You’re perfect,” Gabe tells him.

William just laughs and shoves him and tells him to shut up because he doesn’t believe perfect things exist. That’s why Gabe doesn’t believe him.

 

 

\---

 

The rest of the carriage ride had been spent with William in Gabe’s arms because he hadn’t thought to worn a thicker coat. Eventually, Gabe traded coats with him, claiming his Latino blood keeps him warm. _“That’s why I’m always hot, babe.”_ He had winked, causing Bill to laugh himself silly as they stepped of the carriage and went into the nearest Starbucks for some coffee.

Now, walking back to their place from Starbucks, Gabe has yet to slip in those three little words that had inspired the date.

 _I love you_ is on the tip of his tongue when William laughs at a crappy joke of his.

 _I love you_ is on the tip of his tongue when William leans over to kiss his cheek warm again.

 _I love you_ is even on the tip of his tongue as William throws a snowball at his face.

And soon the romance of the date is ruined because Gabe has engaged in the fight and has soon tackled Bill into the blanket of snow at their feet, despite all the flailing from his elongated limbs.

“Get off me!” Bill squirms.

“That’s the thanks I get for this _romantic date_?” Gabe asks, jokingly.

William rolls his eyes. “You can get on top of me in the _bedroom_. Not in _public_!”

Gabe chuckles, leaning in close and whispering in his ear, “Oh, Guillermo, don’t tell me you’ve never thought of me completely _ravishing_ you in public.”

It’s only a joke, but Bill keeps squirming. “I’ll get snow in my ass!”

“And frost bite,” he adds.

Finally, when it becomes apparent that Gabe isn’t going to fuck him in the snow, William stops struggling; and Gabe watches a blush spread across his face, like it always does when Gabe whispers things to him in Spanish.

He never understands what they mean, he had admitted, one day, but they sound musical coming from Gabe’s lips.

Staring into Gabe’s eyes, William says with a small smile, “You’re wonderful, Gabriel.”

Gabe rolls his eyes. “I’m not an angel, Bill.”

“You’re my angel, Gabe,” William insists.

“You’re crazy.”

“Why don’t you believe me?”

Cupping Bill’s face in both his hands, he idly traces down his cheeks with his thumbs, continues onto his lips and nose and eyes, where he gently trails over those lashes of his. The perfect contours of William Beckett. _His angel._

“Because you told me perfect things don’t exist,” Gabe tells him.

“But, Gabe, you’re not perfect,” William tells him, softly, “Angels aren’t supposed to be perfect. They’re supposed to be beautiful.”

Gabe rolls his eyes, but then Bill is cupping his face in his hands and tracing over those same contours that Gabe had, kissing each spot after his fingers had baptized it.

“Gabe, you are the best thing to ever happen to me. You make me _feel_ , Gabe.” He reaches Gabe’s lips and kisses them softly. “You make me feel beautiful, Gabe. _You’re my angel, Gabriel._ ”

He doesn’t even object against his lips. In fact, Gabe kisses him back as though Bill makes him feel the same way. In fact, Gabe kisses him back because William makes him feel the same way.

“Say something in Spanish to me,” William encourages, nuzzling Gabe’s cheek.

And before Gabe can stop it, he’s whispering, “ _Te amo, Guillermo_ ,” into Bill’s ear.

It’s as perfect a moment as Gabe can get.

And he doesn’t regret that Bill doesn’t even understand.

After all, it was Bill who claimed the angel, Gabriel, spoke through the heart, right?


	14. Mistletoe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Frank, New York’s a long way from Jersey.” Gerard’s face is still morose, still swimming with fear that reflects back to him in the water. The puddle of mud that strips away all the walls and guards that Gerard keeps up. The thunderstorms that make him honest.
> 
> “You’ll be fine.”
> 
> “What if I get homesick?”
> 
> “I’ll come visit you.”
> 
> “What if you’re busy?”
> 
> Frank sighs because Gerard can be utterly impossible sometimes, “Then I’ll bottle up a star and send it your way.”

The days have been cheerier. More alive. Bustling with the whistles of Christmas carols and swimming with all the scents of cinnamon and peppermint and warm chocolate chip cookies. It’s a new constant in Gerard’s how that Frank has become accustomed to- just like the growing Christmas cheer and the back-killing couch he always sleeps on. Half of him wants to ask Gerard if he can slide in the bed with him on some nights, but Frank isn’t ready for that (and doesn’t think Gerard is either). The last few instances of them falling asleep together was always Gerard piss drunk or blacking out from a concoction of pills that had made him scream and lash out at Frank until the younger man could force him down onto the bed. Their last memories together are painfully unhappy.

Frank knows that this would be a chance to rewrite them into happier endings, but life doesn’t work like that. He can’t erase Gerard’s past anymore than he can write his future (and write Lyn-Z out of it in favor of a different love interest). He also doesn’t want to overstep the boundaries their evolved friendship has. No matter what Gerard says, there doesn’t seem to be the stability for a relationship. His lyrics only accentuate the fact.

“Frank, read this, won’t you?” Gerard asks, when Frank’s busy eating the fourteenth in the advent calendar that has been left on the table.

Through a mouthful of chocolate that tastes like cardboard, Frank accepts the sheet of delicately written lyrics to scan through them. “I thought this month wasn’t about ‘work’?”

“It’s not work,” Gerard explains, “It’s my feelings.”

Frank tries not to convey too much emotion as he reads the unfinished song. The jumble of words Gerard ripped from his heart and mind and his mending veins. 

“It’s called ‘Disenchanted,’” Gerard tells him, feeling that the title is of importance. Frank doesn’t see it. “It’s kind of a love song, I guess. Kind of a survival song.”

“Sometimes,” Frank says carefully, placing the paper down and offering Gerard a sad smile, “your idea of a love song is scary.”

“It’s good, though, right?” Gerard asks, “I mean, it works.”

“It’s good,” Frank confirms, glancing down every now and then to reread a line. “But it’s not much of a love song. There’s no… romance?”

“Love isn’t always romantic, Frank,” Gerard reminds him, giving his head a pat before swiping the advent calendar and heading off to find a new place to hide it. Frank always steals the candy because he remembers the calendar’s existence before Gerard every day. From the kitchen, he hears the call of, “I’ve got some last decorating to do! Are you busy?!”

“I thought we were going to see Santa Claus tonight?” Frank calls back.

“Tomorrow!” Gerard promises.

These days, though, Frank is never sure what promises Gerard has an intent of keeping.

His mood swings are monthly. This month, this December, Frank can tell Gerard is trying to convince himself that he is happy. Last month, in November, Gerard couldn’t even convince himself he would ever be happy again. It’s dangerous the way he thinks. It’s scary. Frank’s not even accustomed to letting himself into Gerard’s mind again- the way they did so long before everything fell apart. The way they could practically read each other’s mind and finish each other’s sentences and talk through their eyes. Frank’s afraid of doing that again. He’s afraid of seeing those disenchanted lyrics floating in Gerard’s pupils- instead of the spark they used to hone.

“How many decorations can one man have?” he mumbles to himself before collapsing back onto the couch he’s grown to hate in his stay here. Letting out a frustrated sigh as he thinks of Christmas this year. Those stupid candy cane-grams. The stupid piece of candy Gerard had sent to Lyn-Z. Lyn-Z with her pretty black hair and her pretty brown eyes and her crimson lips (the color of the forbidden fruit, Frank tries not to think) and the fact that she’s a girl. She’s a girl and she’s in a band and she could be a better partner to Gerard than Frank ever could.

Frank with his stupid candy cane-gram sent to Gerard. Frank with his stupid heart on his sleeve in the anonymous message he wrote and the songs he used to sing and the way he gets too attached to things that aren’t his to begin with. He needs to get used to the idea that falling in love with your tragically screwed-up best friend isn’t hopelessly romantic; it’s heartbreak in the making. 

Though, Frank can’t help but think that Gerard wasn’t screwed-up when he fell in love with him.

_The rain is coming down in droves, a late November storm to wash out the dregs of autumn, a beginning to the winter season ahead. It’s cold and chilly and Frank’s jacket is too thin as he and Gerard sit on the rusted and nearly broken swings of the local playground. It’s one of Gerard’s favorite places to go when the drizzling rainstorms are coming in, and Frank doesn’t argue with him (though every time lightning hits, he has a faint vision of the two of them being electrocuted) because whenever Gerard troops off here, it means something is wrong. It means he’s depressed._

_“We’re almost out of school,” he laments, hand twisted around the chain of the swing as he stares at the puddle of water at his feet._

_Frank catches their reflections in it as well. Two drenched boys with hair sticking to their foreheads and red noses and poignant barely-there smiles on their faces. “You are,” Frank corrects because sometimes Gerard forgets that Frank isn’t actually his age because, in Gerard’s fantasyland, they are going to graduate together and get jobs together and live in an apartment together like all those crazy sitcoms suggest._

_“I’m scared, Frank,” Gerard sighs, dipping a toe into the puddle and upsetting the water. “What am I going to do?”_

_“You’re going to art school,” Frank reminds him, then adds, “And you’re going to draw the next Mona Lisa.”_

_Gerard laughs at this. His nasally, high-pitched laugh that can’t be faked. Then, bumping his swing against Frank’s and shaking his head, he says, “What if I don’t make it?”_

_“Then we’ll buy an apartment together and sell our lives to the joys of family sitcoms.”_

_“Frank, New York’s a long way from Jersey.” Gerard’s face is still morose, still swimming with fear that reflects back to him in the water. The puddle of mud that strips away all the walls and guards that Gerard keeps up. The thunderstorms that make him honest._

_“You’ll be fine.”_

_“What if I get homesick?”_

_“I’ll come visit you.”_

_“What if you’re busy?”_

_Frank sighs because Gerard can be utterly impossible sometimes, “Then I’ll bottle up a star and send it your way.”_

_Gerard doesn’t reply. Instead, he looks up from his staring contest with his reflection and casts his gaze on Frank’s. It’s steady and calculated and there’s fear in it. “Stars burn up, Frank.”_

_He frowns. “Then, what do you want?”_

_Wordlessly, Gerard shrugs and stands up before kneeling down in front of Frank on his swing, staining his jeans with mud and all the shades the November rain is._

_Frank, his breaths hitch, and he doesn’t think he can feel any part of his body (though, he’s not sure if that’s because of the cold rain or not). Then, his face has the feeling of icicles in the morgue because Gerard’s hands are cupping it… and then… then everything is warm._

_Because Gerard’s lips are on his and pressing and pressing and his hands have a tight clamp on either side of Frank’s face. He’s too petrified to move, but his mind is working just enough to kiss Gerard back. And who knows if this is because Gerard is afraid or nostalgic or in love. Frank will be whatever Gerard needs him to be. At this moment, Gerard needs him to be his equal._

_“I want this,” Gerard finally says, a shaky mumble and a wisp of solidified breath against Frank’s lips, “I want this feeling bottled up.”_

_Frank smiles under the glow of red rust on the playground._

He fell in love in that November storm.

And then… just like that, it never happened again. Gerard went away and the band happened and their album came out and they toured… and then, the pills came. The booze washed the pills down, and the pills came out the next day to keep the hangovers at bay. A sick little routine that Frank couldn’t save Gerard from even if he tried.

Here they are now, spending Christmas together, and Frank wonders if anything in their relationship has really changed since then at all. They’ll never be GerardandFrank. Not really. Not when Gerard distances himself and kisses him on swings when it doesn’t mean a thing.

“Frank?” Gerard’s voice calls from somewhere in the house. “I need your help!”

“Hold on, Gee!”

That’s all he is now. Disposable help for the season. Maybe next year it will be Lyn-Z’s hands he accidentally brushes against when hanging ornaments or her cheek he gets cookie batter on or her hot chocolate he steals swipes from. _And her lips he steals kisses from._

And after helping Gerard with whatever he needs, Frank decides, he’s going to call Bob or Mikey or Ray and ask if there’s any New Year’s parties happening. Frank is going to get wasted and try to forget Christmas and forget Gerard and forget the feeling of being in love.

Frank would like a fresh start.

A fresh start where he doesn’t fall in love with his best friend and waste years of his life moping over it and getting jealous over any glance Gerard doesn’t send his way.

They’d both be happier that way, Frank knows it. And eventually he’ll find a Mrs Iero to settle down with to name dogs and kids with and live like a suburban family with. Gerard, he’ll do the same thing with Lyn-Z. Then maybe, one day, when they’re old and gray, they’ll be able to laugh and say, “Remember that time you were in love with me?”

_Remember that time I kissed you on a playground?_

_Remember that? Remember how stupid we were to think feeling that way meant falling in love?_

“FRANK?!”

Finally, Frank stands up and treks through the house to find the source of Gerard’s voice. Which isn’t all that hard. In fact, Gerard’s standing in the middle of the hallway with a giant grin on his face and color on his face that reminds Frank of rust on New Jersey playgrounds.

“Yeah?”

Without warning, Gerard is grabbing Frank’s collar and pulling him close and pressing his lips to his. Frank, his mind immediately flies back to that stormy night on the playground… except… it isn’t that night. It’s December, not November, and Gerard is kissing him and Frank. Well, he’s kissing back.

His eyes are slammed so tight that he sees little stars in the back of his mind, the kind he wanted to bottle up in New Jersey, the kind that Gerard warned him would burn up. Everything burns up.

Frank remembers hearing something about being in love. About falling in love again every time you kiss them. And he’s just to the point in believing that this is true, in believing that true love exists and that maybe Frank doesn’t need to fuck himself to deal himself a new deck of cards, when Gerard pulls back.

Slowly, he releases his collar and steps back. No whispered secrets against his neck. No raindrops falling from Gerard’s lips to Frank’s lips. Nothing.

Instead, Gerard cocks his head upwards and says to Frank through a giddy tone, “Mistletoe.”

As Gerard walks away, Frank takes it all back.

He really could use that drinking binge after all.


	15. The Cabin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Ryan.” He turns his boyfriend around to catch his eyes, but Ryan’s gaze is directed at their feet. “Why won’t you celebrate Christmas?”
> 
> “Because!” Suddenly, Ryan is a blur of limbs and hands, and he’s screaming and hysterical. Brendon can’t tell if he’s crying or not. “Because you’ll end up in the hospital! Because someone always ends up in the hospital.”

When Brendon wakes, it’s because of a hard weight pressing on his chest and a shout from Ryan to _get the fuck up_. Blinking his eyes open and murmuring something about pain, Brendon finds the thing on his chest is a suitcase and that Ryan is standing near the doorway, dressed and dangling keys from his fingers. He’s already dressed, with one of those hobbit scarves wrapped around his neck and an equally hipster hat that Brendon’s just learned to accept; and he’s tapping his foot impatiently.

“Wha’?” Brendon asks, yawning and trying to process what time it is. Hell, he’s not sure if that’s the sunrise or if it’s still dark out and the streetlamps are still on.

“Get dressed. Get packed. We’re leaving.” And then Ryan’s leaving the room, leaving to give Brendon some privacy and leaving to avoid giving Brendon answer. He always does this. He always tries to avoid confrontation because he’s Ryan Ross, and he really isn’t fit for a relationship. But that’s not going to stop Brendon Urie….

“Hey!” Brendon exclaims, waking up fully enough to clamber out of bed and sprint after Ryan, grabbing his lanky shoulder and holding him back. “What are you talking about?”

“We’re going out of town for the holidays,” Ryan tells him, blankly, without even turning around.

Brendon, he frowns. He isn’t sure what’s gotten in Ryan’s head - if he had too much eggnog overnight (because, as of lately, that’s the only festive thing Ryan’s been addicted to) or if he’s been smoking with Jon again (last time that happened, Brendon got a call at three in the morning about some war with a chipmunk) or if he thinks that spending Christmas out of town will be easier than spending Christmas at all. “What are you talking about?”

“Just pack, Brendon.”

He pouts in return, even though Ryan can’t see. “Talk to me, Ry. What’re you talking about?”

Ryan sighs, “I don’t like Christmas, Brendon. You know that-”

“Ryan, I don’t see why you don’t,” Brendon argues, interrupting his boyfriend’s train of thought, “You’re not a little kid anymore. There are no monsters under your bed, and there’s no Daddy coming home drunk.”

There’s a shaky exhale of breath on Ryan’s part. “Brendon, that’s not it. That’s not why I hate Christmas.”

“Then what?”

Ryan tries to shake him off, tries to run away from his problems because that’s what Ryan Ross does: he runs. He flees. And he’s damn good at it, too. After his father’s death, Ryan ran straight from the venue after the show and ran… and ran… and ran until he was out of breath and collapsed on the sidewalk. Brendon had been on his tail and collapsed beside him.

“ _He’s dead, Brendon. He’s dead_ ,” Ryan had whispered, a barely there noise over the roar of traffic two streets down. He rocked himself back-and-forth on the concrete, muttering to himself and sniffling and crying. 

And Brendon, he had grasped Ryan’s hand and kissed it. _“I know, Ry. I know._ ”

But now, Brendon’s not going to let Ryan run from him. He’s not going to let Ryan escape and run through the streets of Chicago like a madman, panting and wheezing because Ryan hasn’t been able to run long distance since he started smoking. Brendon hasn’t been able to, either. Which is probably a good thing because it metaphorically puts Ryan on the ‘short leash’.

“Ryan.” He turns his boyfriend around to catch his eyes, but Ryan’s gaze is directed at their feet. “Why won’t you celebrate Christmas?”

“Because!” Suddenly, Ryan is a blur of limbs and hands, and he’s screaming and hysterical. Brendon can’t tell if he’s crying or not. “Because you’ll end up in the hospital! Because someone _always_ ends up in the hospital.”

“Ryan,” Brendon murmurs, trying to pull him close, “I won’t end up in the hospital. _No one_ is going to the hospital.”

“Liar,” Ryan sniffs, but there’s the ghost of a smile behind the sadness because Ryan trusts Brendon. Maybe not as much as Brendon trusts Ryan but… enough.

“Ryan, I’m not your father. I’m not going to be in the hospital,” Brendon repeats. Finally, out of resignation, Ryan lets Brendon pull him into his arms. It’s comforting to Brendon: being able to hold Ryan, even if he’s all bone and all limbs and nowhere near comfortable to be the perfect ‘cuddling-while-watching-movies’ partner, but Brendon doesn’t complain. “I promise. We’re going to have a nice Christmas.”

“That’s why… that’s why I wanted us to get out of town,” Ryan explains, voice muffled into Brendon’s shoulder, “I’m an omen, Bren. This city will go up in flames because of me.”

Brendon laughs, “You think too highly of yourself, Ryan.”

Pinching his side, Ryan huffs, “Ass.”

Neither of them say anything as Ryan calms down in Brendon’s arms, and Brendon revels in the fact that there’s still hope in feeding Ryan with spirit. There’s still hope in having a Christmas like Alex Suarez is having with his personal North Pole in his apartment. 

“Where are we going for the holidays?” he dares to ask once the silence becomes too loud.

Brendon, he’s never liked silence. Ever since he was a kid, he loved noise. He _needed_ noise. Noise was comfortable because Brendon could hear things, and in a room full of noise, there were no secrets kept. It’s only ever when the silence came that things usually came down around him. It was whispered arguments between his parents about his future. It was the way his mother gave him the silent treatment when he broke her heart. And it was always the silence that broke Brendon. 

The noise always made him fall in love. That’s why he loves performing. That’s why he loves the band. And that’s why he loves those nights when Ryan can’t sleep, and he sits there and scratches in his journal. Brendon likes the sound of pen on paper. Ryan thinks he’s being quiet, and Brendon doesn’t dare tell him he makes more noise than he’d expect.

Maybe that’s why Brendon likes the winter, too. There’s hardly ever silence. There’s always howling wind through the naked trees or snow falling from the roof or hail against the window or carolers in the street. Winter is the season of noise. Winter is Brendon’s season.

“Denver,” Ryan finally answers, “I rented us a cabin in Denver. Just me and you.”

“And you’re not going to mope through Christmas?” he asks, half-serious and half-teasing.

Ryan tightens his grip on Brendon and buries his nose in his neck, a sign that he was going to be okay. Because he’s Ryan Ross, and he’ll always be okay. “No. I won’t mope. Promise.”

“Good. Because Christmas wouldn’t be anything without you.” Brendon grins.

“You just want your present.”

“I heard it was going to be good this year.”

“Ass,” Ryan repeats and pinches Brendon, again… just for the fuck of things.

 

\---

 

It hadn’t taken long for Brendon to pack, though it seemed like he had tried to take the whole house with him- which Ryan would not allow. He had to search through Brendon’s suitcase and had asked why he needed random objects such as coloring books or old batteries. And when Brendon’s _you never know’s_ were rejected, they finally made it to the airport in time to wait in the terminal for a few minutes before boarding their flight.

Ryan’s plan had been to leave for Denver as fast as possible before something stopped them.

Now they have enough time to catch their breaths before they board their flight. Enough time for Brendon to look at the pamphlets and brochures of the lodge they were staying at and the cabin they were frequenting. From the pictures, Brendon only assumed that it was comfortable and cozy and secluded, amidst the mountains. He also assumed it was secluded. Private. Romantic. Like a honeymoon…. 

“Let me call Alex,” Brendon says once they’re seated comfortably (or as comfortably s one can sit in an airport seat) and waiting patiently.

“Why?”

“Because, my plan worked.” Brendon grins, standing up and bouncing away from Ryan to dial the magic-maker, himself. 

On the third ring, Alex picks up. His voice is loud and shouting in Brendon’s ear as though there’s something spectacular going on over there. Brendon manages to ask what it is through the excess of noise crackling into his ear.

“ _Oh, hey, Brendon! What’s up? Need another Christmas carol?_ ” he shouts, and then off-handedly screams to someone, “ _No! No! You’re making it worse! Stop it! STOP IT!_ ”

“Alex, is everything okay over there?” he asks, warily.

“ _Oh god! It’s everywhere_!”

Alex disappears from the line for three seconds. There’s screaming and the sounds of breaking objects and the sound of electricity going off before he returns to the phone. Silence ensuing.

“Sorry. The snow machine went berserk.”

“How?”

“It just wouldn’t stop. Even when we unplugged it. Robots gone bad and all.”

“Oh,” Brendon laughs.

“What do you need?”

“Nothing!” Brendon’s grin lights his face up as he starts bouncing up and down (a habit he has when being on the phone with someone that annoys Ryan to no end). “It’s just… your plan worked, Suarez! Getting Ryan into the Christmas spirit. He’s taking me to a cabin in Denver!”

“Don’t forget the flavored lube!” Brendon hears Nate shout into the phone, voice muffled.

“Nate’s right,” Alex affirms, “Did you remember condoms?”

“And a kinky Santa suit!” Nate adds on.

“Maybe some handcuffs made from tinsel?”

Brendon laughs and only stops the exchange of holidayesque sex toys banter when he tells the two that their flight is boarding, and he has to go.

“Good luck,” Alex tells him, and Brendon can hear a genuine smile despite the miles between them.

It’s something Brendon learned early on upon making acquaintances with Alex Suarez (at one of Pete Wentz’s lame parties where him and Ryan were still in that phase of an awkward little fling. Where Brendon had fallen head over heels and Ryan had been busy with a different blonde arm candy every night in some twisted sort of game) that Alex was always happy for others. That Alex could always see the silver lining between everything. Brendon likes that idea of seeing the good in everyone. 

“And don’t have sex in the snow!” Nate screams as a goodbye. “Or else Ryan’s dick will turn blue and you-”

The line goes dead, and Brendon heads back to Ryan with a bounce in his step and a light in his face that hadn’t been there before. Thanks to Ryan (and Alex Suarez), Christmas actually held more promise than it had a week ago. Christmas in Denver with Ryan. Brendon kisses Ryan’s cheek as the idea overtakes him, and he grabs his hand to take him to their flight.

“Thank you, Ryan.” Brendon glances back to catch Ryan’s eye. “You’re amazing.”

“So are you, Bren.”

“Yeah. But you’re amazing in the you’re _fucking weird but lovable_ way.”

Ryan frowns at this. “You think I’m weird?”

“Ryan, you go outside and pick fights with the chipmunks.”

“They’re the ones that steal the pies on the windowsill.”

Brendon gives him a sympathetic pat. “Ryan, this isn’t a movie. No one leaves pies on the windowsill to cool anymore.”


	16. Snowman

The weather turns the Baltimore sky shades of periwinkle blues and temperate grays that make up the December afternoon in the city. Beneath the canvas of sky is another canvas, an untouched blanket of snow sparkling under the frosty glow of the sun. The flakes are picked up by the wind and sent fluttering down towards the ground, tainting it with added hues of silvery whites. Meanwhile, the wind paints the cheeks of Alex Gaskarth and Jack Barakat red as they step outside into the wintry afternoon.

“Fuck. It’s freezing,” Alex chatters, pulling his coat tighter around himself.

“Okay, Grandpa,” Jack snickers, giving him a mocking pat before parading out into the flat planes of snow to make his mark, imprint his silhouette in the form of footsteps that the winter would outlive.

He falls into the ocean of awaiting snow, laughing as he creates snow angels. Little relics of himself in the snow. Little pieces of him that should never leave the home of Alex’s lawn because Jack christens it with all the new colors of Christmas. The snow becomes home to both of them, a patch of heaven that welcomes every slight movement of Jack and every upsetting of its turf. 

Finally, through all the laughter and the failed attempts at catching a snowflake in his mouth, Jack looks up at Alex and says, “Let’s build an igloo and live in it forever.”

Alex smiles and wishes that he still had Jack’s way of thinking, still had that tinkling charm of youth in his voice and that boyish gleam in his eyes. He envies the way Jack’s brain works, the way it works in the here-and-now. And suddenly, Alex feels too old for Jack. Like he’s grown out of his imaginary friend. Like Wendy grew up and left Peter Pan to his own fun in Neverland. Sorry, Peter, Wendy grew up; she’s never coming home to Neverland. “It would melt in the summer.”

“We’d buy air-conditioning, Alex, you cheap bastard,” Jack says like it’s the simplest thing in the world, laughing along because Jack’s made up of laughter. He’s made up of arctic winters and animal-shaped clouds and melting ice cream on a hot day and igloos in the summer and pure laughter in the plains of winter. “We’re fucking rich! We can buy anything.”

“Bitches and hoes,” Alex reminds him, watching the way Jack’s face lights up with the euphoric reminiscence of some sort of Christmas miracle. 

Because that’s what he is, in a sense. Jack is a Christmas miracle for Alex. A soul mate. A best friend. Hell, he’s even more than all of that. He’s the ringing bells that give the angels wings. He’s the magic of children who still believe in Santa Claus with visions of sugarplums dancing in their heads. He’s a miracle. He’s more than seeing is believing because he is Jack Barakat, and he is Alex’s soul mate. 

And as Alex falls into the ground beside Jack, relishing in the way that the snow seems to bend to his body, to allow him and Jack to look more like lovers than friends in that winter afternoon, Alex thinks how lucky he is. After all, some people go their whole lives without knowing or meeting their soul mate. Some people don’t even fall in love with their soul mate. Some people are just content with the knowledge that their soul mate is out there somewhere. That there is someone out there who fits them perfectly. There is someone out there who only makes heaven exist because it’s waiting for that meeting of two lost souls finding each other. A dead heart cannot be broken. Even dead hearts can love.

Because love is forever, Alex likes to think because he writes songs about such things. Love is forever. Love is soul mates. Love is running away to melting igloos in the middle of July because the smile in their face and plead in their voice is too much. Love is Jack and Alex.

“We could run away,” Jack says again, stilling his flying arms and abandoning the angel beneath his body.

“We couldn’t,” Alex says because Alex is too old to live in Neverland fantasies. He’s not like Jack; he’s not immortalized within a cure to growing older.

At these words, Jack sits up. There’s snow sticking to his back and scattered in his hair, and Alex has the insane urge to brush it off and intimately card his hand through Jack’s hair. To form a connection that doesn’t exist unless Alex wills it to. He doesn’t. Instead, he watches the way Jack twists his body to be near Alex and the way he leans in to press a kiss to his cold and chapped lips, exhaling a warm gust of foggy air against his cheek. “Yeah. But sometimes I hate sharing you.”

Alex’s heart leaps at these words, even though it shouldn’t. He knows Jack means it in the way that Alex gets jealous whenever Jack is laughing or having fun with someone who is not him. Not in the way that is intimate jealousy between couples. Because Alex and Jack aren’t like that. They’re best friends, no matter how hard Alex wishes on the northern stars.

“I hate sharing you,” Jack mumbles again, kissing Alex’s lips harder and pressing forward and slamming his eyes tight as though he wants to see dancing constellations and arctic lights beneath closed eyelids. 

Alex kisses back just as hard, feeling his body numb with a tingling sensation of being high on Jack. A whiskey-like warmth spreads down him and settles in his stomach. And his heart is busy beating loudly in his throat, keeping any words to uncover the rhyme or reason of these actions at bay. All he can do is kiss Jack in their frosty tundra beneath the mosaic of clouds that make up that December afternoon.

Eventually, though, Jack pulls away. He stands up, brushing snow off himself and asking with a bobbing smile. “Where’s the stuff?”

It takes a few minutes for Alex to force himself to stand. For his body to accommodate the fact that Jack had been so close. That Jack’s lips had been against his and that Jack had been mumbling sweet endearments against his cold cheek. His cold skin that feels much warmer than it did seconds ago.

And Alex thinks that, okay, maybe it isn’t that cold out here.

Regardless, he tramps over the front steps of his house to pick up a top hat while Jack busies himself in rolling snow into a ball. The top hat, it’s filled with magic. It’s filled with winter miracles and kisses on New Year’s Eve and all the magic that fuels kids’ imaginations (and Jack’s). Nestled in the top hat is a carrot, a toy pipe from an arcade, two pieces of coal and a handful of buttons.

“Let’s build Frosty,” Jack says, already rolling the base of the snowman out. Sculpting and piling and patting down the snow in order to make something that could be larger than the two of them.

Alex helps him, still giddy from Jack’s words against his lips. Jack hates sharing Alex, and Alex hates sharing Jack. It’s mutual, and he doesn’t understand why they both don’t hoard themselves away to solve this problem. _We could run away_ , Jack’s words haunt the back of his mind. _Let’s run away to Neverland_ , Alex’s own words haunt his mind. Sorry, Peter, Wendy is too old for Neverland.

But that’s silly because love isn’t restricted. Love isn’t censored. Love isn’t age. Love is Alex and Jack, together.

“And you wanted to stay inside and do that stupid crossword puzzle,” Jack mocks Alex’s new addiction.

“It’s warm in there,” Alex justifies with a shrug.

“Maybe we can watch the O’Reilly Factor,” Jack snickers, “That is… if it’s before your bedtime.”

“Shut up.” Alex gives him a playful nudge as he helps Jack shape their snowman’s base.

It’s silent while the two of them work. Nothing but the sound of snow packing together and crunching under their hands. A silly little soundtrack to the snowy days that are numbered between the two of them. Because once Christmas is over, Jack will go home. They won’t be this single entity enjoying the holidays together and laughing over hot chocolate mustaches and snowmen dressed up in silly hats. They’ll be Alex Gaskarth. And Jack Barakat. And all the miles between their houses.

“I’m kidding,” Jack says, finally. 

Alex looks up, questioningly.

“I like the way you do the crosswords in the morning,” Jack says, softly, as though this is some sort of secret for Alex’s ears only. “I think it’s cute how you work so hard on them… even though you could just cheat on next morning’s paper.’

“Jack, I know you’re kiddi-”

“And I like the way you act grown-up sometimes,” he goes on, “I like the way you sometimes tell me to grow up because… I need that, Alex. I need someone there to give me a grip on reality.”

Alex holds Jack down to reality. Alex is the anchor on Jack’s soaring ship.

“I need you, Alex,” Jack whispers. The wind nearly disguises the words, but Alex hears them clearly, clearer than ice.

“I need you, too, Jack,” Alex mumbles. They might not mean it in the same way, but it’s enough for Alex to know he’s not the only one who needs. Who needs commitment. Who needs the knowledge that somebody reciprocates his love in the same way. Maybe not to the same degree, but close enough. Soul mates.

There’s a glow on Jack’s face at these words. A sort of color that wasn’t there when they first came outside. And Alex wants so badly to believe that he is the cause of it. But the slowly completed snowman is towering over him, and he’s beginning to think its new form is amusing Jack more than anything.

“Where’s the hat?!” He jumps up-and-down; and when Alex brandishes the top hat, Jack fumbles with it out of excitement before he’s able to properly finish Frosty. The pipe. The nose. The eyes made out of a coal. Buttons. And the top hat that completes the magic.

Together, Alex and Jack create magic. Maybe not the way that Alex wishes for, but in a way that makes Jack smile. That’s enough for him.

 

\---

The snowman towers over them as they lay at its feet, basking in the ambience of their hard work and creativity. Leaving further imprints of the two of them where they look more like lovers than friends. An imprint of their intertwined hands in the snow.

Jack’s hands are numb around Alex’s, but he doesn’t care. Rather, he grips them tighter like Jack’s going to fall off the earth at any minute. “Our snowman kicks ass.”

“He’s going to melt in the summer,” Jack says in perfect imitation of Alex from before.

Alex frowns, partaking in childhood long enough to stick his tongue out at Jack. “We can enjoy him in the winter at least. Hell, we could take some pictures, Jack.”

“Alex.” He pauses. “I wasn’t lying when I said I needed you before. A-and when I said I didn’t want to share you.”

Alex screws up his face in concentration. “I don’t understand you, Jack. Really, I don’t. I wish I did, but… this isn’t a movie. I can’t read your mind, a-and you have to leave Neverland eventually.”

Jack chuckles, sitting up again. Alex feels like this has happened before, but he doesn’t question it when Jack tucks himself against Alex’s side like he was meant to be there. Like his purpose in life is to be the other half to Alex that he’s missing. With a giggling grin, Jack presses his lips to Alex’s for the second time that day.

He kisses back, again, because he can’t turn down a chance to kiss his soul mate in the romanticism of the afternoon. There are sighs and hands being gripped tighter, and Jack is tugging the frosty tips of Alex’s hair, playfully. Nipping his bottom lip in the same mannerism before pulling away… and giving his hair one last tug.

“I hate sharing you,” he repeats.

“Jack….” Alex can’t breathe or think straight. He can’t. He still feels Jack’s breath against his skin and can taste him in his mouth and feel him against him.

The shadow of the snowman splays across their two bodies.

And Alex grins because he finally understands what Christmas miracles are.


	17. Christmas Specials

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pete tears his attention from the dog, giving him mindless pats as he catches Patrick’s eyes. “You’re not wearing a hat at the wedding, Patrick.”
> 
> He huffs, “Who says there’s going to be a wedding? I’m not marrying you. You gossip about me.”
> 
> Pete giggles again because, somewhere deep inside him, there’s some whiny angst poem-writing teenage girl dying to get out. “To my dog.”
> 
> “Still counts.”
> 
> “Patrick,” Pete sighs, looking up and trying to mimic his best ‘puppy dog eyes’ but failing miserably, “will you marry me?”
> 
> “…no.”

His voice is still hoarse, and his head is still throbbing. The antibiotics have definitely helped, but Pete is still sick in the middle of Christmas. And of course, he feels fucking terrible about it. This Christmas was supposed to be about the two of them: Pete and Patrick. It was supposed to be about falling in love deeper and deeper until the two of them drowned in each other. Until the floods come. Until the undertow swallows them whole. Until Pete and Patrick are sinking with that kiss of eternity.

“Pete, it’s okay,” Patrick tells him for the millionth time because Pete’s been apologizing at every point in time. “It’s not your fault. You’re reckless and forget your coat sometimes. Who doesn’t?”

“ _You_ don’t,” Pete presses, and it’s true; Patrick doesn’t forget his coat. In fact, Patrick rarely forgets things because he’s Patrick Stump, and he’s perfect.

“I’ve been sick before.”

“I’ll probably get you sick,” he complains, letting Patrick nudge his head back into his lap.

It’s comfortable, the two of them on the couch together. Patrick lets his fingers dance along Pete’s cheek and trace the contours of his jaw and lightly flit by all the pressure points in his neck, almost pretending that Pete is the neck of his guitar. And Pete, he smiles because Patrick’s touch is cure enough for him and it’s relaxing and he could fall asleep to the feel of those calloused (but not too calloused because for some reason Patrick’s hands are softer than Pete could ever imagine) tips drawing nonsensical patterns onto his skin. Ghosting against him like whispered breaths in the bed. Their bed.

“Pete, stop bitching,” Patrick tells him, plaintively. “You’re not ruining Christmas. You’re not the Grinch, and you’re not Ryan Ross; so shut the fuck up.”

Pete laughs because Patrick’s laughing in the middle of his sentences; and he finally relaxes under the ministrations. “Fine. Sick or not, we’re still doing the Christmas party.”

“I doubt you’re in any shape to host _that_ ,” Patrick says, teasingly, but he means it. Because it’s true. Pete isn’t really in any shape to host a party.

“I’ll ask Gabe or Travie or someone.” Pete shrugs, appeasing Patrick.

The younger man finally relaxes and lets the overstuffed couch Pete has eat him as he falls back into its comfort. There’s another weight that joins him, and Patrick sees Hemmingway has joined the party. He clambers into Pete’s lap, and his owner immediately wraps two arms around him, grinning and cooing at the dog like it were his child or something.

“You’ve been good for Patrick, haven’t you?” Pete asks, pausing long enough for Hemmingway to bark some sort of reply. “You haven’t been chewing on his hats? You’re not going to be the reason I’m single, you know? ‘Cause, between you and me, I think Patrick loves his hats more than me.”

Laughing, Patrick flicks Pete’s head. “Shut up. I do not.”

“See, Hemmingway? Did you see that, boy?” Pete cuddles the dog closer, whispering loudly in his ear. “He’s abusing me now that I know his secret. You’ll find me in the basement tied up one day. Patrick’s a kinky sex fiend, you know?”

“I am not!” Patrick’s face heats up, and Pete breaks down into a coughing-giggling fit.

“The fans are going to start asking if Patrick keeps his hats on during sex,” Pete goes on because he likes pushing Patrick’s buttons. Because his boyfriend gets worked up over little things, and Pete likes pushing him to the limit. After all, if Patrick’s going to stay with him, he needs to stay with him through thick-and-thin. Annoying and calm.

“The fans aren’t going to know anything.”

Pete tears his attention from the dog, giving him mindless pats as he catches Patrick’s eyes. “You’re not wearing a hat at the wedding, Patrick.”

He huffs, “Who says there’s going to be a wedding? I’m not marrying you. You gossip about me.”

Pete giggles again because, somewhere deep inside him, there’s some whiny angst poem-writing teenage girl dying to get out. “To my dog.”

“Still counts.”

“Patrick,” Pete sighs, looking up and trying to mimic his best ‘puppy dog eyes’ but failing miserably, “will you marry me?”

“…no.”

“Will you at least turn the television on?”

“Will you stop talking about our sex life on the internet?”

“I _joke_ about it, Patrick,” Pete says in exasperation.

Patrick leans forward to grab the remote and flick the television on for the two of them. “Yeah? Well some of our fans probably take you seriously… in which case, _they know_.”

“I don’t see why you’re so stuffy about this.” Pete nuzzles further into the warmth of Patrick’s lap, smiling sedately. “I want to tell everyone who I love.”

Ignoring the way Patrick’s face heats up, like it always does when Pete compliments him or starts to get sentimental, the older man turns his attention to the television watching the channels surf by. Sometimes he wishes that Patrick would let Pete do what Pete does and leak their lives to the public. They’d get a lot of shit for it- being gay these days does that to you. But at least Pete would be able to go out and hold Patrick’s hand without worrying the paparazzi are going to turn it into a scandal or kiss Patrick at a fancy restaurant before proposing to him or actually being able to propose in the first place.

Not that Pete doesn’t already do that on a daily basis. It’s redundant, yes, the way Pete is always asking for Patrick to marry him. He does it during interviews, on stage, back stage, when the two of them are alone together. Every time Patrick rolls his eyes and tells Pete ‘no’ because obviously he’s Pete Wentz and he must be joking. He could never want commitment. He could never want ‘until death do us part’ and ‘in sickness and health’. Except that… he does.

He wants one day for Patrick to say ‘yes’. For Pete to be able to give him that ring he normally carries around with him everywhere. He wants the white wedding with the exchanging of vows and being able to look into Patrick’s eyes, in front of everyone, grab his hand and tell him all about how Pete Wentz fell for him.

How Pete fell for the boy practically sewn from all his dreams, the remedy to his nightmares. The boy with the music in his laugh and the life in his eyes. The awkward boy who was always too short or too plump. The boy (because Patrick could never really be a man to Pete. He’s still the boy he fell in love with all those years ago. They’re both still boys who fell in love and fell into that awkward phase of hand-holding in private and stealing kisses goodnight and brushing hands in the popcorn bowl) who puts his headphones on when Pete starts being a drama queen. The boy who pulls drawstrings out of hoodies and smells like laptop batteries and hotel mints. The boy who isn’t necessarily perfect when he looks in the mirror but is perfect when his reflection is suspended in Pete’s pupils. 

Patrick Stump is Pete Wentz’s little piece of perfection. And Pete wants him to be his.

“I love you, Trick,” Pete says mindlessly.

Brushing some hair out of Pete’s eyes, Patrick smiles. “Love you, too.”

“If you really loved me, you’d put a Christmas special on,” he suggests.

Patrick rolls his eyes. “Your fans think you’re real hardcore and stuff, Wentz, but you’re a fucking _softy_.”

Pete’s too sick to argue and feels too perfect in Patrick’s arms to upset the balance. Instead, he hums and watches the way Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer flits across the screen in that traditional claymation special that graces the airwaves once December begins. Meanwhile, in his own lap, Hemmingway drools.

They lay like that for a while. Watching Rudolph and Clarisse and all those childhood memories that Pete holds very dear to him. He wants to make new memories with Patrick. Memories that will make them infinite. Memories that they can laugh and smile about when Patrick finally says ‘yes’ and Pete can finally slide that wedding band onto Patrick’s ring. When they can finally flaunt it around that, yes, they’re married and, yes, it feels fucking fantastic.

Being married to Patrick would be some dream come true. Pete could fall asleep next to him every night and wake up with Patrick nearly pushed off the bed (because Pete’s a blanket hog and pushes Patrick off the bed in the process). He could laugh at his failed attempts to make breakfast on their anniversaries (because Pete always burns things, and Patrick rarely lets him use the stove anymore). And then they could just lay on the couch, like they are, and aimlessly talk about things that hardly matter anymore. Or talk about life. 

Yeah, life with Patrick would be fucking fantastic.

“You’re still kind of warm, Pete,” Patrick comments when his hand strays on Pete’s forehead too long. “You might be getting sick again.”

Pete groans, tearing his eyes from the comforting Christmas special, “Take care of me?”

“You know I will.” Patrick pokes him.

“What if one day you don’t? What if one day you think I should learn my lesson and remember my coat?”

“Pete, I wouldn’t let you suffer because you’re an idiot.”  
“Through sickness and health?” Pete can’t help but mumble, trying to hide the way the corners of his lips quirk into a smile.

“Yeah,” Patrick answers, “I’d love you through all of that. And then some.”

“Patrick, why did you ever fall in love with me?” he asks.

And Patrick, he shrugs, his eyes flitting back-and-forth between Pete and the television. “It’s not like I could help it. It just happened. Why?”

“Just wondering.” He shrugs. “Isn’t that the kind of stuff you say at weddings, anyway? How you fell in love with that person. _Why_ you fell in love with that person.”

“Not necessarily. Sometimes you just focus on the ‘in love’ part. Love is love. Where it happens doesn’t matter. And how it happens doesn’t. All that matters is you feel the same way about each other.”

And Pete nods. He misses writing songs with Patrick. Patrick balances out his pessimism and makes Pete forget that the world isn’t always logical and the world isn’t always some terrible place waiting to rip him to shreds.

“I like watching Christmas specials with you,” Pete notes, aimlessly petting Hemmingway and just wanting to hear Patrick’s voice because it’s better than any silly Christmas special that is spread into thousands of marathons throughout the month.

“You like talking through them, too.”

“I like talking to you.”

“Pete, you’re delusional when you’re sick,” he laughs, fondly.

And, yeah, maybe Pete is a bit delusional, especially with the blue light of the television falling across Patrick’s face and driving the phosphenes forth from Pete’s eyes. An after image of perfection.

“Sometimes, I think you fell from heaven,” he muses, falling asleep in the middle of the show.

Patrick chuckles, “Pete, sometimes, I think you watch too much television.”

Pete falls asleep and dreams of a white wedding and a white smile on Patrick’s face and a white hot gleam in his eye when Pete says ‘I do’. He’s not sure if it’s even possible; but in his dreams, Pete thinks he married an angel.


	18. Ice Skating

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Spencer….” Jon wobbles on his feet, latching himself to Spencer’s side and watching his feet sliding in opposite directions. It’s not surprising he’s no good at this; Jon’s never good at anything that requires balance or coordination. He was never picked first for kickball in gym class, he can’t dance to save his life (or to save a wedding night), and he runs like some sort of retarded octopus. Jon, he tells this all to Spencer.
> 
> And Spencer laughs, “Jon, you’re not William Beckett; you can’t be a retarded octopus.”

“I hate this. I hate this. I hate this,” Jon complains in the middle of their ‘date’- if Jon can even call it that anymore. After all, he’s spent most of the date watching Spencer zoom around on his skates, while Jon clings firmly to the wall, trying to keep from falling down and yelling at arrogant teenagers crashing into him. All in all, it isn’t his finest hour.

In fact, he almost wishes he were at home with his two new cats, watching reruns of _American Ido_ l he has Tivo’d. _Almost_ wishes. He wouldn’t give up a single second of Spencer for all the power of Tivo and comfort of kittens in the world.

Spencer giggles, a flighty little laugh that matches the wisp of his feet against the ice. He shakes his head, eyeing Jon with an amused gleam in his eye sparkling like the frozen water he’s gliding across like he was born with skates strapped to his feet. “C’mon, Jon. It’s not so bad.”

“It is,” Jon complains, wondering what possessed him to agree to go ice-skating with Spencer, wondering what possessed him to be willing to make a fool out of himself. He only does that when he’s stoned or drunk. Not _in love_. “My ass is being kicked by a block of ice.”

“Then stop falling on it!” Spencer suggests brightly, coasting over to where Jon’s gripping tightly to the railing and trying to regain what little balance he actually has.

Jon snorts, “Easy for you to say.”

It’s been nearly an hour of ice-skating with Spencer, and all Jon has been able to do is have a few spectacular wipe-outs (bruising everything from his arm to his ass) and hold onto the railing (treating it more like a date than Spencer). But, really, who fucking ice-skates anymore, he thinks. Ice-skating is for cheesy romance movies and Freddie Mercury.

He doesn’t even see how it’s romantic. After all, he can’t even release the railing, let alone skate off into the sunset holding Spencer’s hand.

It could be worse, a voice in the back of his mind assures him. They could be in Central Park in New York City, like Spencer had gushed to him on the drive over, that he wanted to do that before he died: ice-skate in Central Park. Jon could be in New York City making a fool out of himself. Instead, he’s in Chicago, making a fool out of himself. _Just for the record the weather today is complete humiliation with a slight chance of ridicule._ The Chicago forecasts have marked him with bad luck. _Cloudy with a chance of Jon Walker falling on his ass._

“Jon, it’s not that hard.” Spencer gently tugs on the sleeve of his jacket, offering his best wounded puppy looks. “Please, skate with me?”

And Jon sighs, surrendering to the pathetic little look and melting into Spencer’s new embrace around him. Because Jon is in love; and because he is in love with Spencer, he will give into the biggest of all holiday clichés and ice-skate with him.

“You owe me,” Jon manages, gripping Spencer’s hand tight and trying to force himself away from his safety railing.

“I’ll take you to Starbucks afterwards,” Spencer offers, kissing Jon’s arctic hand and tugging him away from the railing.

Surrendering, Jon lets himself be pulled away from the railing, feeling his feet buckle with imbalance and lack of coordination until… until Jon is on his ass in the middle of the rink and Spencer is beside him, having been brought down by Jon’s clumsiness.

“Fuck!” he hisses at how sore his ass is. “I’m no good at this, Spencer.”

“Calm down, Jon. Just hold my hand.” Spencer fixes them up in such skilled moves that Jon wonders if Spencer was ever in the Olympics or something for this. Wonders if maybe Spencer is leading some double life.

Quickly, he shakes the thought out of his head and makes a mental note to cut back on his marijuana intake. It’s screwing his thoughts up.

“Spencer….” Jon wobbles on his feet, latching himself to Spencer’s side and watching his feet sliding in opposite directions. It’s not surprising he’s no good at this; Jon’s never good at anything that requires balance or coordination. He was never picked first for kickball in gym class, he can’t dance to save his life (or to save a wedding night), and he runs like some sort of retarded octopus. Jon, he tells this all to Spencer.

And Spencer laughs, “Jon, you’re not William Beckett; you can’t be a retarded octopus.”

Jon laughs too, able to look up from his feet and into the shining face of Spencer. Spencer, who looks so alive and youthful with the north star gleaming in his eyes and his cheeks kissed red from the cold and his hair in flyaway directions from the sport and his legs gracing the ice and tugging them along the rink. Coasting.

….

“Hey, I’m doing it!” Jon exclaims, a giggle in his voice as he realizes that yes he’s ice-skating without wiping out. And even though Spencer is supporting him and guiding him along, Jon is still doing it. It still counts.

Besides, Jon hopes Spencer would support him in other things as well. Not just ice-skating.

He feels the ice glide by under his feet, hears the sounds of the blades running down the ice and watches the little path it lays behind in its wake. Evidence that Jon and Spencer had been here. Together. _In love._ It’s something endearingly romantic about the wintertime for Jon: the fact that everything is nearly permanent. There’s always quotes about footprints on the beach, he thinks, but those wash away. In the snow, they’re more permanent. There’s more hope in the winter. There has to be: Christmas miracles.

After all, it’s a Christmas miracle that Jon Walker is skating on ice for more than five minutes without falling.

Spencer grips his hand tight. “See? Told you it wasn’t so bad.”

“I’m not ever joining some sort of skating competition with you,” Jon warns him with a hesitant chuckle as he tries not to focus so much on counting down how long until he crashes and more on the flying sensation he gets whenever he’s around Spencer.

It’s like a high, being with him. Only… there is no heavy crashing like waves on footprints in the sand; rather, the high merely bubbles down from intense levels to a moderate, bubbly feeling he can’t even begin to describe. A euphoria evolved from the winter wonderland. A euphoria weaved from snowflakes and cast out into the sea of snow. Jon Walker is in love.

“Who says I would ask you to be my partner?” Spencer counters, quirking a brow of his. “I’d ask Brendon before I ever ask you. He’s not so… stiff.”

“Stiff?”

“Yeah, stiff. Like… for you, I have to persuade you a bit to come out of your comfort zone, and even then….” he trails off, and Jon isn’t sure why for a moment before he realizes why Spencer looked like he was bracing himself.

“Spencer, _brake_!” Jon’s screaming as he sees the looming wall in front of him. “ _Emergency brake! STOP!_ ”

“I don’t know how to stop,” Spencer snickers as Jon tightens his grip on Spencer. “So… you just have to crash somewhere.”

_Just for the record, the weather today is a tidal wave of ice rink walls and a downpour of Jon Walker’s falsetto screams that would make even Brendon Urie proud._

Just for the record, they’ve crashed.

 

\---

 

Inside Starbucks, it’s warm. The red color has drained from both of their faces and instead a whiskey-like feeling of warmth has crept into Jon’s stomach as the smell of coffee swirls around him; and he’s never felt more at home. Fuck, he loves coffee.

“I… had fun on our date, Spence,” Jon says quietly, feeling like he’s ruined it because of his inept skills at the sport.

Spencer doesn’t even bring it up. Instead he smiles and leans over to kiss Jon’s cheek. “Next time, you can choose where we go.”

Jon nods. _Just for the record, the weather today is awkward conversations and a hail of coffee grounds._

They make it to one of the couches with the coffee warming up their hands and take seats: Jon, trying to be suave and yawning as he throws an arm around Spencer. Spencer, he just laughs.

“You’re a dork.” Spencer elbows him, playfully.

And before Jon can stop it from slipping out, he’s saying, “But I’m _your_ dork.”

They fall into an awkward silence, both of them sipping rather noisily on their coffee and twitching. Finally, though, Spencer leans against him and nuzzles the side of his face, murmuring, “Yes. Yes, you are.”

Jon tightens his grip around Spencer’s shoulders. “So, what are the plans for the holidays?”

“Going to Pete’s Christmas Eve Party,” Spencer announces, fiddling with his cup of coffee. “I’d rather go to that than the New Year Party.”

Jon nods. He understands. The New Year Party gets out of hand. It’s always people too drunk to function and making out and trying to push the gay boundary as much as possible without being _gay_. There’s guys and girls alike stripping. Most rooms are usually locked with nothing but the sounds of sex behind them, and the coat closets aren’t much different. For one day, each year, Pete Wentz’s house becomes a brothel.

It’s much too early in their relationship for them to be getting smashed around that sort of crowd. Jon doesn’t want to fuck this up and end up screwing someone alcohol tempts him to.

“U-unless you _want_ to go?”

“Spencer, I don’t care where we spend New Year’s,” Jon admits, “As long as it’s with you.”

“You’re not going to hide away in your house for a week?” he teases, grinning ear-to-ear nonetheless.

“I wasn’t hiding away.” Jon rolls his eyes. “I was just…lonely.”

“Loneliness is curable.” Spencer kisses his cheek, again.

“Yeah?” he sighs when Spencer’s lips wander to the corner of his lips, kissing it, and leaving his lips a hairsbreadth away from Jon’s.

“Yeah,” he breathes against them. They’re almost kissing. “Know what it is?”

“What?”

“We could move in together,” he suggests, still teasing Jon. Still not kissing him yet.

Jon’s eyes widen, and he almost pulls back. Instead, he catches Spencer’s eyes, sparkling with an emotion he has yet to name. “A-are you serious?”

“Why not?” Spencer reaches up and rubs Jon’s cheek with his thumb, a soft smile and soft stare. “We’re friends before lovers, anyways. I’m lonely, you’re lonely. Quick fix.”

“Moving in isn’t a quick fix, Spence. It’s a commitment. Need I remind you, you ran away for a week after you kissed me.”

“What did you expect? I wasn’t quite sure how gay you were.”

Jon chuckles at this, “So there’s levels of gay now?”

“Yeah. You could be Brendon-gay, or you could be… _Jon Walker_ -gay.”

He laughs again, shaking his head (still somewhat amazed that Spencer has kept their positions nearly the same. Kept their lips the same distance apart). “I’m serious, though. Moving in is… a big step.”

“Jon.” Spencer tangles a hand in his mop of untidy hair (wind-swept and tousled over-and-over by Spencer, himself). “I’m starting to miss _touring_. Fucking touring. I miss sharing everything and falling asleep to someone else’s snoring and waking up and knowing I won’t be alone. Fuck, Jon, I’m lonely; and I don’t even have a cat.”

“If we can survive the holidays….” Jon says slowly. Because he really does want Spencer to move in with him. He’s never wanted anything more. It’s just, Jon doesn’t want to lose Spencer. Even though he claims they’re friends before lovers, sometimes that line is hard to cross. Sometimes that line can be blurred. Jon’s sure it has blurred before with Spencer. Jon blurs and breaks rules for Spencer all the time. Why should this be any different? “We can move in together.”

“God, you’re perfect,” Spencer sighs, finally connecting their lips and letting Jon experience complete nirvana, a forgiveness for the lousy date.

He tastes coffee and some sort of pastry Spencer had bought at the counter. And he also tastes that taste of _Spencer Smith_ , the sort of taste that Jon wants to chase to the back of his mouth until he can finally label it. It’s sweet and sugary and something that only Spencer could ever taste like.

It could be loneliness, Jon decides.

But he knows better. Spencer’s not really lonely; he’s just as in love with Jon as Jon is with Spencer.

That’s what the taste could be, maybe.

_Just for the record, the weather today is complete and utter romance._

 


	19. Snowflakes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Give and take. Ebb and flow. Love and hate. The best and worst of them always at odds. But that’s how all relationships work, anyways. Compromises within the arguments, kisses within the fights, love within the hate. Or… at least, this is their relationship. This is their relationship, and Brendon wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world

  
They reach Denver and make it to the cabin with no problems or complaints of bah humbugs from Ryan. They both pass out from jet lag, still in there clothes, and without even sliding under the covers. Instead, the two of them find each other during the night, bodies seeking out warmth as Brendon buries his face in Ryan’s chest and Ryan pulls him close with an arm around his waist. They fall asleep like that, and they wake up like that. And Brendon thinks he could do this every day for the rest of his life.

  
Brendon wakes up feeling fresh as ever and watching the blizzard progress from the window of their cabin. Tiny snowflakes dancing down in front of his vision. Little angels watching through the window as two lovers intertwine upon the bed. Little saints in the middle of Christmas. Little dancers of the Yuletide. Beauty in December. But, as Brendon looks up at his lover, he thinks nothing could be as beautiful as Ryan Ross sleeping.

His mouth is hung open slightly and little snores are issuing from it, barely there breaths that remind Brendon of how raw and lovely and spine-tingling Ryan’s voice always sounds (singing or not). It’s deep in a way that it shouldn’t be and soft in a way that you wouldn’t imagine the Ryan Ross being capable of. But that’s hit voice, and Brendon thinks it’s a bit underrated. 

Ryan’s hair is tousled and his lashes tickle his cheeks every time he stirs slightly. Under Brendon’s head, the steady rise and fall of his chest and the slow beating of his heart is some sort of personal lullaby. A song for Brendon’s ears only. He wonders if their heartbeats beat the same. He wonders if they’re soul mates.

“Ryan,” Brendon whispers, giving the sleeping body a poke. “Ryan, wake up.”

Ryan tries to roll over, tries to bat Brendon away, but he’s underneath him, trapped helpless.

“You’re too skinny, Ryan,” Brendon complains because he knows Ryan is up. Ryan is a light-sleeper. The smallest of noises wake him up, and he tosses and turns for hours until he can fall back to sleep. “Your ribs are digging into my stomach.”

The small smile on his face gives away his cover. Finally, he mumbles, “Maybe you shouldn’t use my body as a mattress.”

“You weren’t complaining.”

“True.” Ryan finally wakes. His eyes opening and piercing Brendon with that warm honey gaze that he always hones. That soft look, that loving look, that reassures Brendon that Ryan does care for him- even when he gets moody and grumpy. It’s that look that Brendon sees Iloveyou’s in. That he sees the romanticism of winter in because they have the same gleam as snowflakes against the window.

“Denver’s nice,” Brendon says, conversationally, letting his head fall back onto Ryan’s heart. Listening to the carol of Ryan’s heart, a morning serenade in the middle of winter for Brendon and Brendon only. “We should have come earlier.”

“You were too busy dragging me all over the mall and neighborhood, dressed as Santa Claus,” he complains.

“I thought you looked nice.”

“You’ve got some weird kinks, Brendon,” Ryan tells him, pointedly; and Brendon shakes his head, laughing and rolling off of Ryan to dig through his suitcase and find some clean clothes. Some warmer clothes. Clothes fit for the occasion.

“We should stay in bed,” Ryan suggests as he watches Brendon throw on some ugly sweater he’d gotten many Christmases ago and other articles of clothing that look fit for snow play.

“Ryan, we’re on vacation; we’re not spending it in _bed_.” Brendon rolls his eyes and grabs Ryan by his scrawny wrist, tugging him out of bed.

Ryan, he squeaks as he _plonks_ to the floor and glares up at Brendon. His eyes still sparkles like snowflakes in the morning sun, and Brendon laughs.

“You’re adorable.”

“I’m pissed off.”

“If you were pissed off, you’d be calling Pete up and bitching to him,” Brendon says, “You two complain for _hours_ together.”

“We do not!”

“If I haven’t seen your dick before, I’d think you were a girl,” Brendon laughs. He finishes getting ready as he laces up his boots and throws his gloves on.

“You’ve done more than seen it, Brendon.” Ryan stands up and reluctantly follows Brendon’s lead in getting dressed. “What are we doing?”

“Poking around. I want to see the resort,” Brendon explains. He throws a hat on his head and puts one on Ryan’s head, too (no matter what a work of art Ryan’s bed head is. The way it’s all over the place and could put Ray Toro to shame).

“You didn’t see it enough on the taxi ride over?”

“Stop being a little bitch, Ryan,” Brendon laughs.

“Last time I checked,” Ryan mumbles, through the face full of scarf he has, “you were the bitch in the relationship.”

“And last time I checked, you were skating on thin ice with me,” he warns, wagging a finger in his direction.

Because Brendon _still_ hones a little hostility at the way Ryan had moped about for the better half of December. The way he had retreated into himself and refused to talk to Brendon for days on end. Pouting through the house in his pajamas and barely talking, barely eating, sleeping all day. Yeah, Brendon is still a bit mad because when Ryan decides something is bothering him, he makes damn sure everyone knows. Brendon’s also a bit mad that it took Alex fucking Suarez to get him and Ryan on better terms for the holidays.

Really… they’re all adults, aren’t they?

“You knew how I felt about Christmas,” Ryan justifies, letting Brendon lead him out of their cabin.

“Doesn’t matter. You were ruining my Christmas, Scrooge.”

They fall into silence because even Ryan knows he was in the wrong. And Brendon knows that Ryan knows this, so he lets it go. They’re at an understanding: Ryan celebrates Christmas because of Brendon’s happiness and Brendon doesn’t overdo it because of Ryan’s unhappiness. That’s their relationship, and that’s how it works.

Give and take. Ebb and flow. Love and hate. The best and worst of them always at odds. But that’s how all relationships work, anyways. Compromises within the arguments, kisses within the fights, love within the hate. Or… at least, this is their relationship. This is their relationship, and Brendon wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world. He loves the way they work together, even if it doesn’t work all the time.

“I hate the cold,” Ryan says, and Brendon grabs his hand in order to shit him up and circulate some blood beneath the glove, warming it up.

“Shut up, Ryan.”

They hold hands, walking through the resort and watching the way it’s empty in the morning. The blanket of tuffed up snow being added to as the snow falls down. Little dances. A ballet for the two lovers. Winter is for humans and dancers and everything between.

“Ryan, I have an idea. Can we try it out?” he asks, softly, the reflections of faux ballerinas in his eyes like words on the tip of his tongue.

“Sure.”

Brendon stops them in the midst of their walk, turning to Ryan and throwing an arm over his shoulder. He takes a step in. A step out. A personal rhythm with the snowflake.

“Seriously?” Ryan chuckles, but he lets Brendon dance with him because no one is around (and even if they were, Brendon doesn’t give a fuck because he should be allowed to be in love) and because it makes the both of them smile.

“You have to learn to dance in the rain,” Brendon explains, loving the way Ryan’s gaze constantly flits down to see his feet. Ryan’s curse is that he has two left feet, and Brendon thinks it’s because of his elongated limbs or something. He always trips during slow dances, and he looks like an epileptic animal during fast songs. 

“It’s snowing.”

“Frozen rain,” Brendon argues back, sticking his tongue out for an added effect.

“Smart ass.” Ryan leans in and fits his face in Brendon’s neck, letting out a warm breath of air.

“You love my ass.”

“It’s a nice ass.”

“You’re always horny in the mornings.”

“So are you,” he argues with a dramatic little sigh. “And to think, we could be in the cabin, having the greatest sex known to man-”

“Yeah? Well, we’re outside dancing in the snow; and you love it.” Brendon accentuates his point with a firm kiss to Ryan’s lips, ignoring the fact that Ryan forgot to brush his teeth and tastes of morning breath and something that could be lingering coffee from the plane ride. Or tea. Or something. Whatever it is, it’s not the hottest taste in the world.

The conversation simmers as they keep dancing, Brendon trying to loosen Ryan up enough to dip him back or spin him around. Ryan just clings tighter to Brendon and murmurs against the cold column of skin that his neck is that _he better fucking not even think it…._

So the dance died. Swaying. Barely moving. Just pressed together under the snowy skies of December. Pressed together in the holiday season, warmth against warmth. A dance to the symphony of their beating hearts. 

Brendon wonders if Ryan could see the future when the lines of one of their songs echoes in his mind. _Dance to this beat and hold a lover close._

“Thank you for this trip,” Brendon says, kissing Ryan’s hair and stopping their waltz. Until they’re standing in the midst of the blizzard, holding each other. Keeping each other warm.

“I owe you, anyways,” Ryan says.

“No, you don’t,” Brendon says. Ryan doesn’t owe him. They love each other, and there’s no reason why Ryan has to make up for things that just aren’t his fault. Not in fancy ways such as this. Not in trips to Denver.

“Fine,” Ryan sighs, falling stiff against him, “maybe there was a different reason for this trip.”

Brendon pulls away, catching Ryan’s eyes and the warmth in them. The warmth that could melt the snowflakes in his hair. The warmth that’s melting Brendon’s heart at the moment. His voice catches. “What?”

“A bit earlier than I planned for this,” he murmurs, trailing off and shifting his gaze back to the ground.

With an awkward shuffle of limbs, Ryan is on his knees before Brendon. A fucking angel in the field of snowy warriors, parading down from the skies. A saint in the midst of a battlefield.

A white, white battlefield. Like a white, white rose.

Like the shining white gleam of a ring that Ryan’s showing him now. A clumsy, youthful smile on his face.

“Brendon,” he says in a steady voice, but Brendon knows he’s tripping over his words. Can hear the pause in them. “Brendon Boyd Urie, I love you.” Brendon thinks he just squeaked. “And I know I’m hard to deal with and hard to live with, but… you put up with me through it all. And I can’t keep dancing around the question. I can’t--”

“ _I do_ ,” Brendon interrupts Ryan because, if he didn’t, Ryan wouldn’t shut up. He’d keep talking and talking and tripping over his words and ruining the entire proposal. 

Then, Ryan’s sliding the ring onto Brendon’s finger and his heart is fluttering and beating rapidly. His knees are about to give up, and he’s glad when Ryan pulls him close to administer a kiss to his frozen, quivering lips.

Brendon doesn’t even care that he’s cold or that Ryan doesn’t taste as sweet or intoxicating as he normally does. Because Ryan just proposed to him in the snowy field of their Denver resort… in the midst of _Christmas_. Brendon doesn’t care for anything but the little ring on his finger.

“Ryan, I love you,” Brendon whispers, hearing the smile in his voice.

“I can’t wait to marry you,” Ryan replies, the same smile in his voice.

And in Ryan’s arms, in the flurry of December, Brendon hears their two beating hearts… synchronized. 


	20. Santa Claus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I hurt you,” Gerard murmurs, looking like he wants to cry. “A-and you did nothing. I treated you like shit, Frank. I’m sorry.”  
> “Gerard, you weren’t yourself. I don’t blame you.”
> 
> “I’m still responsible for my actions,” he says, sadly, “And I’m sorry. I never, ever want to hurt you again. You’re my best friend, Frank, and I would die for you.”
> 
> Something inside Frank heats up. He can feel a blush creeping onto his face, and his heartbeat racing. The softness in Gerard’s voice, the honestly in his eyes, how can he deny all that? Love is apologies and forgiveness and learning to live with all the imperfections in the relationship.
> 
> Frank could live in a house of Gerard’s imperfections.

Hiding his disappointment through packs of cigarettes, watching the ashes fall from his cigarette and wishing he could flick his emotions off just as easily, Frank tries to keep his distance from Gerard. It’s been a new Christmas tactic, avoiding his best friend. Because Gerard isn’t his best friend. Sure, he’s healthier and no longer indulging in drugs and booze and everything that makes his eyes go wild. Everything that makes him scream at Frank or fight with him or try to punch the lights out of his eyes. Gerard is healthier, but the emotions are gone.

His best friend is a robot, Frank thinks solemnly, as he watches the ashes fall into the snow in the front yard. Long gone are the days when Gerard would be curled up in his tour bunk and whispering to Frank that he was going to get better or that he was sorry or that _he loved him_. Long gone are the days when Frank would reach over on stage and grab Gerard by his throat, telling him he was his best friend and that Frank would die for him. The meaning hasn’t changed over time, but the way Frank says it these does has. Hell, Frank barely says it at all because Gerard has never given him reason to.

Instead, he’s addressing candy cane-grams to people who aren’t him; and he’s kissing him only because a stupid fucking plant told him to.

Frank went over to Mikey’s the other day to complain. Because no one knows Gerard better than his own brother. Mikey hadn’t been much help, though. He’d just told Frank that it was the holidays and the holidays made people do stupid things. Frank always thought love made people do stupid things, but his definition of love has all been wrong up to this point. It’s blurred past comprehension, now.

He used to think he was in love with Gerard (a part of him still wants to), but the way they act around each other these days isn’t love. There’s envy and mockery and resentment and disappointment and fear. This isn’t love, Frank thinks. Love is never having to say sorry. Love is never having to hurt someone on purpose. Love is not turning into a monster. Love is none of this, none of the interaction between Gerard and Frank this December. It’s just… Frank’s not sure what to call this.

There are no words for his feelings about Gerard… except  _love_. He loves Gerard. He’s just not sure if his feelings are reciprocated.

“Frank, there you are.” Gerard pokes his head out the door and then exits the house, bundled up and shivering beneath all his layers. He holds out a hand, and Frank gives him a cigarette without question. Lights him up and watches the way Gerard’s breath mixes with the smoke. He remembers an occasion where he and Gerard had shotgunned their first cigarette, back when they were teenagers. He remembers the thick fog of smoke from his mouth wafting into Gerard’s, remembers the tingle of Gerard’s lips so close to his, remembers the warm breath on his face….

“Needed a smoke,” he mumbles, trying to keep friendly conversation but detach himself from the situation as well.

“You promised me a date,” Gerard says around his cigarette, and Frank nearly collapses at those words. _A date._

“I did?”

“We’re supposed to go see Santa Claus,” he reminds Frank. Frank only wishes they had done this before Gerard had kissed him beneath the mistletoe and made things so… complicated. It had been a pity kiss. It _had_ to be. Why else do you invite your swooning, jealous best friend under the mistletoe with you? To pity him. And Frank doesn’t want Gerard’s pity. He wants Gerard to _want_ to kiss him. To _want_ it as much as Frank does.

“Don’t you think we’re a little old for that?” he asks, coolly, still trembling as he tries to remember the etiquette of smoking a cigarette again. His hands are cold and numb and trembling. His heart is racing. He can’t handle this.

“You could pass for an eleven-year-old,” Gerard laughs, nudging Frank in that _best friend way_ they aren’t anymore.

“I’m vertically challenged. That’s nothing to laugh over.”

But Gerard laughs, anyways, leaning against Frank and not realizing the effect he has on the younger man. The way Frank wants to run away to get drunk and stay there to bask in this feeling at the same time. 

“I just want to have fun this Christmas. You’ve seemed kind of down,” Gerard tells Frank, sighing a bit, “I want this to be special… for the both of us. B-because I’m clean, Frank. I’m sober.”  
“Gerard, we don’t-” Frank tries to interrupt him, knowing Gerard still isn’t at ease with talking about his inner demons or his nightmarish past that had nearly cost him his friends, his family and his life.

“We do, Frank,” Gerard says, firmly, pulling away to look him in the eyes. “We have to talk about this. Because it’s _there_. It _happened_. I tried to kill myself. I drowned myself in addictions. A-and I hurt people I love in the process, Frank. _We have to talk about this_.”

“We really don’t, Gee,” Frank whispers, trying to be sympathetic. He doesn’t need to hear explanations. Regardless of anything that has happened over the holidays, Frank still calls Gerard his best friend; and he still thinks that whatever is between them is love. Love is never having to explain yourself. 

“I hurt _you_ ,” Gerard murmurs, looking like he wants to cry. “A-and you did nothing. I treated you like shit, Frank. I’m sorry.”

“Gerard, you weren’t yourself. I don’t blame you.”

“I’m still responsible for my actions,” he says, sadly, “And I’m sorry. I never, ever want to hurt you again. _You’re my best friend, Frank, and I would die for you_.”

Something inside Frank heats up. He can feel a blush creeping onto his face, and his heartbeat racing. The softness in Gerard’s voice, the honestly in his eyes, how can he deny all that? Love is apologies and forgiveness and learning to live with all the imperfections in the relationship.

Frank could live in a house of Gerard’s imperfections.

“Gerard, I know you’re sorry,” Frank tells him. “I never once doubted you.”

“Sometimes I feel like I ruined everything,” Gerard goes on, blathering as he watches the smoke curl up into the sky. Their own personal clouds before it dissipates into the blowing breeze. “Like I have to redo all my relationships. Start from scratch. I broke everything, and I feel like fixing it won’t work. I have to buy new ones.”

“Gerard, everything can be fixed,” Frank tries to assure him. But he’s not even sure he believes the words tumbling from his mouth.

Gerard glances over at Frank, all sad browns in his eye and fallen smiles. “And if it can’t?”

“Then I’ll bottle up a cure and send it your way?”

They smile, and Frank feels his stomach flip because that grin means Gerard remembers. He remembers that New Jersey night. That night that would live in their memories forever. The night that would outlive them for the rest of their lives. The milestone in their relationship.

“Do you still want to see Santa Claus?” Gerard stubs out his cigarette.

Frank follows suit, nodding. “Yeah. I want to see Santa Claus with you.”

 

\---

 

“What do you want for Christmas, Frank?” Gerard asks absently as they wait in a line of impatient children and scolding mothers. Both of these species are giving the two of them quizzical looks, frowns and glares. Two grown men, after all, aren’t allowed to believe in Christmas myths. They aren’t allowed to succumb to holiday magic.

He shrugs, trying to play it cool and instead singing the line of that silly song to Gerard. “ _All I want for Christmas is you_.”

Gerard laughs, “Frank, seriously. You’re the only person I haven’t shopped for yet.”

Frank’s heart falls because he was being serious. But he understands how Gerard wouldn’t understand. The pity kiss lingers in the back of his mind. “Have they invented tall pills, yet?”

“No. Pete Wentz is still the size of midget.”

“Then I don’t know what I want,” he admits. Love isn’t about presents and gifts and expensive things that glitter in the sunlight. And Gerard may not see their relationship as love, but Frank does. Frank couldn’t see it as anything but.

“You better think of something fast.” Gerard points to the front of the line. “You have to tell Santa what you want.”

Frank thinks Santa would send him a sack of coal if he ever whispered in the jolly man’s ear what he _really_ wanted for Christmas.

They’d been standing in line close to an hour because, apparently, having a picture taken with Santa is a big thing these days. Scarring your kids for life as they sit on a stranger’s lap is pretty popular. Who knew? And the amount of screaming children is giving Frank a headache.

He’d regret this immediately if Gerard’s face wasn’t lit up by the fluorescent lights of the mall that shine green and red across him.

“I was going to paint you a picture, but I lost my inspiration,” Gerard admits.

“You wrote that song,” Frank points out.

“That’s different,” Gerard says quickly. “That was… that was about you.”

Frank blinks, eyes widening at the same time. Gerard’s ‘love song’ had been about him? About the boy from New Jersey with the crush? He shakes his head, words drying up in his throat. “Y-you….”

“It’s different because, when it comes to you, anything is possible, Frank. Inspiration is easy. The words just… flow. We’re best friends; we know all about each other.”

Frank just nods because he still can’t think of any words to say.

“A-and I couldn’t just paint anything. There’s no inspiration there. When I’m writing, it’s easier to be inspired. I can think of anything, s-so I thought of you.”

Frank still doesn’t say anything because he’s busy telling himself over-and-over not to lean over and kiss Gerard. They’re not stupid teenagers afraid of the future anymore. And they’re not standing under mistletoe.

Even if Frank had wanted to say anything, he couldn’t. It is their turn to see Santa, and him and Gerard are walking up to the jolly man in red who is laughing and _ho ho ho merry Christmas_.

They take their pictures, crouching beside him because both of them doubt they’re light enough to sit in his lap (even if Gerard tries to nudge Frank into). Finally, as Gerard is walking away, Santa asks what they want for Christmas.

It’s only routine, after all.

Frank bites his lip, watching his friend look away. He knows Santa Claus isn’t real. He knows none of this matters… so why doesn’t he just say it? Leaning over, he whispers in Santa’s ear, “I want him.”

Santa looks over at Gerard with questions in his eyes.

Frank nods. “I wish for _him_. To be in love.”

Santa smiles, and Frank walks away before he can say anything.

“I’ll take you out to eat,” Gerard offers as Frank catches up with him. Their hands brush as they walk, and Frank tries to ignore that. “I bet there’s a few vegetarian places around here.”

“Thanks for this, Gerard,” Frank murmurs, “I needed this.”

“I know.”

 


	21. Icicles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> William smiles again, a bright jumble of teeth against his lips, red from licking them in the dry air of the winter, and holds the icicle up to the sky, fumbling with it a little. The sky swims like the sea in the glass, but William holds it and points to a swarm of stars to Gabe’s left. “That’s Cygnus. The North Star is there, too. That’s the one to guide you home.”
> 
> Gabe can’t help but think he’s home already.

Above, the moon shines down on the Chicago street in splatters of silver and beaming whites that mix with the snow until the winter is transposed into a cocktail of milky whites and glittering quilts of ice crystals. In the midst of it all, their footsteps intertwine, imprinting themselves forever on the crisp snow banking against the pavement. Imprinting themselves as they trod across the snowy land crunching beneath their feet.

“Who knew you were such a romantic?” William teases his boyfriend as they trudge across the pale moonlight on their nightly excursion.

It had been Ryland’s idea, really, Gabe muses at the ingeniousness of it all. Take William on a romantic walk outside and tell him in light of the full moon, ‘I love you.’ A simple enough plan for a simple enough guy to carry out. The only problem is, Gabe is jittery. He’s always jittery and anxious when he’s nervous. His teeth chatter in light of the cold, and he wraps his jacket tighter around himself; William, noticing this, grips Gabe’s hand tighter until the older feels one of them is about to break their wrist.

“I love winter at night” William sighs dreamily, staring around at the once monochrome cityscape of suburbia now turned a miraculous tint of white and silver and crystal blues as the sky and the milky way meld above the moonlight. “You can really see everything.”

And Gabe thinks that statement is a lie. Because if he could really see everything then he’d be able to see a solution to his problem written between the sidewalk lines. He’d be able to see it as clearly as an icicle, hanging from the sides of houses. Offhandedly, he says, “That’s because it’s all ice, querido.”

William giggles. He usually does when Gabe calls him Spanish nicknames. He thinks there’s something endearing and hopelessly romantic about foreign languages, but Gabe’s not one to complain; he’s always trying to get William to smile or laugh. Maybe that’s why he does some of the stupid things he does, in the first place….

“When I was little,” William says, whispering into the still of the night like it’s a secret for just the two of them, “I used to think icicles were looking-glasses.”

“What?”

“Looking-glasses.” William gestures wildly. “Mirrors, almost. Telescopes, more so.”

“Oh.” Gabe pauses, smiling as he tries to imagine a smaller William tucked somewhere on the front porch, holding an icicle up to the sky and star-gazing. “You were a cute kid, William.”

“Yeah? And I bet you were a menace,” he chuckles, cattily in return.

Gabe hums in agreement. “Probably was. Still am.”

“Oh, I don’t think that.” William stops them on the middle of their walk, turning to face Gabe and grabbing his olive-skinned face between his gloved hands. William’s hands are soft and icy and so fucking cold, but Gabe doesn’t shy away from the touch. He relishes it. He leans into it, closing his eyes a little until William is nothing but a silhouette in his vision. “I think you’re perfect. My angel, Gabriel….”

He then leans in to kiss his boyfriend, lips cold and chapped but welcomed anyways. Gabe kisses him back, beneath the Chicago streetlamp until he feels his feet numb and his lips freeze and his hands shake, and then he’s gripping William for support. Chattering his teeth against his cheek and dotting kisses up it anyways, trying to show William he loves him even in the rough December. Trying just to show William he loves him.

“Gabe, do you want to go back?” William asks, “You’re freezing!”

“B-bill, ‘m fine,” Gabe lies through clacking teeth. “I just… I wanted to walk with you. I wanted to….”

But the answer is lost somewhere in Gabe’s throat, and he can’t choke it out. He can’t utter those three simple words that will complete their relationship. That will complete them. That will complete Gabe and William.

“What?” William’s big doe eyes are blinking stupidly.

“I just… tell me about the icicles,” Gabe improvises because he can’t do this. He knows what to say, but he can’t choke it out. Here, it doesn’t feel as private as it should. Here, he feels exposed with the neighbor’s houses surrounding them and the stars watching from above and the light from the moon exposing them for the whole world to see. Gabe feels naked.

William eyes Gabe for a second before he takes a breath. “I used to break them off the roof of the porch. Me and Courtney would hold them up to the stars and pretend we were astronomers, I guess. We’d sit and count the stars and name them and fall asleep until Mum or Dad would carry us inside.” He laughed. “We always got so sick.”

“Yeah?” Gabe smiles at the story and turns them around en route back to William’s house.

William follows, a skip in his step. “Yeah. We’d do that until we were in high school. Then… the winter before I graduated… we did it one last time. Only, no one carried us in this time, and we both nearly got pneumonia.” He laughs at this, too, because there’s always something endearing about the past, as well.

Gabe steers the two of them to William’s porch and sits them down on the frigid bench on the porch, staring out at the stars above them and the moon and the bluish-black sky falling and dripping around the celestial bodies. William tucks himself against Gabe, nuzzling into his warmth and breathing out a puff of fog.

Gabe lights a cigarette before leaning over and snapping an icicle from the porch and handing it to William’s gloved hand. “Watch the stars with me, Guillermo.”

Smiling, William grips it tight, his perfectly aligned teeth spilling over his lips giddily as he holds it up to the sky.

Inside the icicle, Gabe watches the sky contort and distort before his eyes. He watches the blues and blacks wash together in a thick dripping conglomeration. He watches the coagulation of stars swirls inside the dripping icicle, melting to the ground with each droplet in that winter night.

“I’m sorry this is kind of lame,” William says with a shrug of his shoulders.

Gabe inhales from his cigarette and shakes his head with his exhale. “I think it’s brilliant. I think you’re brilliant, my little astronomer.”

…. “You’re such a dork, Gabe.”

“I’m your dork,” he finishes for him like he always does.

And William nods (just like he always does). Because, yes, Gabe is his dork. Gabe is his idiot, his reckless eight-year-old, his fucking messed up boyfriend. But that’s okay, they both think absently, because they’re both a little messed up. That’s what relationships are, after all. It’s basking in the fact that someone is as fucked up as you are. And being content with that.

“Your turn.” William trades the icicle for the cigarette and closes his eyes to puff away at the Marlboro greedily.

Gabe holds the icicle up to the sky, staring for familiar constellations that his mother had taught him about years and years ago when they had been a perfect family. When Gabe had had the perfect childhood. When Gabe suspects he still knew how to say ‘I love you’ to someone.

Above, the sky washes out in hues of black and blue that ripple like the ocean. The stars glimmer and shimmer above him. The moon drizzles downwards like a van Gogh.  
Gabe thinks William is more beautiful than this panorama, though.

He chances a glance at the younger, his silhouette ringed silver by the moonlight and basking in a nicotine buzz he’d not gotten all day. Smoke falls from the corner of his mouth, and Gabe wishes he could breathe it in. 

“You liked the stars when you were younger?” Gabe asks, trading the icicle for the cigarette once again. Both have dwindled down to near stubs.

“Loved them,” William says, features lighting up. There’s a red color on his cheeks from the cold nipping them.

Gabe wonders how it’s so easy to love an inanimate object but not a person.

It’s stupid because Gabe’s already fallen in love with William, and that’s supposed to be the scary part. Not admitting it.

“I used to know all those constellations. Cygnus the Swan. Draco the Dragon. Andromeda. Cassiopeia. I’d point them out to my sister on those nights, and we’d laugh.”

“Show me,” Gabe whispers.

William smiles again, a bright jumble of teeth against his lips, red from licking them in the dry air of the winter, and holds the icicle up to the sky, fumbling with it a little. The sky swims like the sea in the glass, but William holds it and points to a swarm of stars to Gabe’s left. “That’s Cygnus. The North Star is there, too. That’s the one to guide you home.”

Gabe can’t help but think he’s home already.

With the porch light shining down on William, his boyfriend looks angelic. Not angelic in the way that William associates Gabe with- but angelic in the way that is complete and utter perfection. To Gabe, William is beyond perfect. Sometimes, Gabe thinks William is too perfect for him. His slender limbs. His big eyes. His rose petal lips. His lush hair. His jingling laugh, the way it tinkles like rain against glass. Gabe’s in love with all of that.

But he can’t fathom the words to say it.

Instead, all he can do is sneak peeks at William Beckett, pointing out the stars for Gabe. And suspended in his eyes, Gabe thinks that they’re his favorite constellation.

 

\---

 

They sit like that for another hour, cuddled up together on the bench, safe from the wintry winds by the porch around them. Gabe keeps his arm tight around William’s waste, sleepily dotting kisses on the younger’s head. It’s only when Gabe hears the minuscule of snores that he realizes William is asleep. William had fallen asleep watching the stars on the front porch. Something he hadn’t done since he was in high school, and he had done it with Gabe.

The icicle lay melted on the ground at their feet.

Gabe kisses William’s head again lazily before he finds himself subconsciously murmuring into his hair, “I love you, William.”

And there were the words.

Out there.

In plain sight.

Only William had not heard them. Rather, he snored again and rolled over, digging his nose deep against Gabe’s chest.

Gabe sighs and picks William up, carrying him inside so the sleeping beauty wouldn’t get sick in the chill of the night.

Gabe sighs and realizes that, maybe William never will know he loves him. And that thought scared Gabe.

Above, the North Star winks.


	22. Feast

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack squeezes him, and he sounds sad, himself. As though Alex has done something wrong-- like swallowed dozens of pills or robbed a store or shot a gun. He sounds heartbroken as though Alex has done all those things and more. And this makes Alex cry harder because he thinks he broke Jack.

Standing in the sizzling hot kitchen with the smell of ham and turkey permeating the air around them, Alex swears he can feel the hairspray in his hair dripping off the strands. He’d had the oven on in his house for the better part of the day, slaving over the ham and the bread and even the salads. With only three more days until Christmas, Alex finally realizes that, yeah, he’s sick of sharing Jack too.

With that in mind, quite tactically, he’d had Rian and Cassadee take Jack to see Santa Claus (because Jack’s always a sucker for acting eight-years-old in public), leaving him enough time to cook up some romantic date for the two of them.

Alex still isn’t quite sure how he’d had the epiphany that it was now or never to tell Jack about his feelings. Sure, he runs the risk of losing Jack. Of losing the hangover kisses and the laying side by side in the snow and even the sharing each other with other people despite their opinions otherwise on the matter. But it’s a risk Alex is willing to take because, at this point, Jack is driving him crazy.

He can’t stop thinking of Jack. How much he loves carding his hand through that skunk hair of his, relishing the silky strands beneath his tips. How much he loves feeling his boozy breath down his neck when the two of them are drunk and watching television and laughing on-and-off at lame cartoons. How much he loves the taste of Jack’s lips even when it tastes like stale beer and pop tarts. The thoughts had begun to drive Alex crazy; and when he couldn’t get rid of them, he decided he might as well act on them.

_“About time,” Rian says, when Alex calls him on the phone, yesterday to explain his grand plan. His grand epiphany._

_“Stop sitting there and smirking.” Alex rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling, too._

_“You don’t know I’m smirking.”_

_“I can hear you!”_

_“You can hear a smirk?” And Alex has almost forgotten how much of a smartass Rian is in all his Jackmania. How long he’d been sick, he’s not sure. But recently the diagnosis had suggested the only cure consist of a feast for two. And who’s Alex to deny a doctor his prognosis?_

_“Are you going to help me or not?”_

_“About time,” Rian says again before hanging up, leaving Alex with the echo of a smirk._

Now, Alex is standing in his kitchen, pacing back-and-forth and running a hand through his sticky hair and playing with it. Just little quirks that Alex knew drove Jack crazy. But that’s okay because Jack drives Alex crazy to begin with.

And the idea of the two of them together drives him absolutely insane. Alex, obviously, knows that their lifestyle won’t permit them to be this public couple like Rian and Cassadee. In fact, Alex is sure the only publicity the two of them will get will be the rumors from fan girls’ lips. He smiles, though, because that is enough.

Anything is enough when Jack is concerned.

Even measuring their love in light years.

Which Alex admits he does now. He does a lot of things he used to never do before. Before he and Jack hated sharing each other. Before he and Jack became soul mates in more than Alex’s mentality. Though, he suspects, they have always been like this; it’s just finally coming to light now. Now that it has, Alex finds himself more sentimental and nostalgic. He takes more pictures, writes more songs (love songs, too), worries about whether or not he smells like sweat and body odor and sleep, and wakes up every morning not hating himself to death and wanting to drown in a bottle of booze.

Because, yeah, there’d been a time when Alex had fallen. When he’d hit rock bottom. Hard. He’d wake up and drink, throw a party, invite over cheap friends and cheaper strangers with the cheapest booze, and then lock himself in the bathroom, crying into his whiskey…. 

 

\---

 

_Alex starts to get the feeling that something is wrong. That all the drugs and the booze mixed together in his system can no longer combat the disease he’s plagued with. The disease that keeps him up at night, that consumes his body and his mind, leaving him with nothing but night terrors and insomnia for the morning after. This disease, it’s killing him. Wearing him out. Destroying him. Alex feels like another defective rock star that the world only cares for post-mortem._

_It’s times like these that Alex really believes there’s no cure for depression. No cure for this hell he’s going through. These episodes of self-loathing- or self-destruction, depending on who you ask. The times when he’s attempting to sleep and his dreams are afflicted with night terrors. Of death and bad memories and fear and loathing. Times when he’s in so much pain and crying and trembling and screaming at the top of his lungs for someone, anyone, to help him in his too big and too empty house._

_But no one comes. No one ever comes. And Alex is left to listen to his own echoes, returning to him in a voice that sounds more like a stranger than it should._

_Tonight is a Saturday night, another party at his house, another desperate attempt to chase away the demons and the loneliness with some cheap beer and whiskey and even cheaper company. Strangers who come by to rub elbows with a ‘celebrity’ and friends who come for the ready and available selection of drunk girls._

_Alex groans, doesn’t even know why he has these parties anymore. He doesn’t talk to anyone, doesn’t laugh or play party games with them or even hook up with anyone anymore. He’s already drunk when they arrive, and it only takes him another hour before he’s locked up in his bathroom, on the floor and sobbing against the cold tiles. Whether they’re drunken crocodile tears or real tears for this real disease that kills him by degree, Alex isn’t sure. All he knows is that there has to be some sweet reprieve out there._

_There has to be some cure for this depression. A cure that isn’t at the bottom of a bottle. He thinks, as he sobs into the tiles of the floor, that maybe he lost the cure. Maybe he had found it at one point but had lost it amidst a sea of one-night stands and drinking binges._

_There’s a knock on the door._

_“Go away,” Alex croaks. There’s an empty whiskey bottle beside him, and he grips the neck of it pathetically. Crying because this is what the famous, lyrical genius Alex Gaskarth has been reduced to. Locked up in his own bathroom to escape his own party, crying because his whiskey is gone._

_“Alex, it’s me.” And there it is. A voice he hasn’t heard in weeks._

_“J-jack?” Alex slurs, lifting his head from the ground and releasing the bottle to wipe at the dried tears on his cheeks._

_“Alex.” He sounds concerned, and Alex wonders when the hell did Jack show up. Up to Alex’s knowledge, Jack has been out of town, visiting family for a bit. Escaping the demanding and hazy life of touring. When the fuck did Jack get here, Alex asks himself again, struggling to reach the door and unlock it for his friend. His very absent friend. Jack couldn’t have been here long enough to drink; he sounds sober, and Alex swears he’s only been up in the bathroom for an hour tops._

_Finally, unlocking the door, Jack steps in and shuts it behind him while Alex returns to his previous position, curled up on the floor._

_“Alex.” Jack kneels down beside him, placing a hand on the back of his neck. “What’s wrong?”_

_“Nothing,” he lies. Because what else is he going to say? I’m so fucking sad all the time, and I don’t know why. That sounds like something a teenage girl cries in the bathroom over, not a grown-up._

_“Alex, Flyzik called me,” he says, “All you’ve been doing is partying.”_

_“So?”_

_“And drinking,” Jack adds, glancing over at the half-empty bottle besides them._

_And Alex, feeling his eyes well up and his voice get thick, sobs again._

_“Alex, what’s wrong?” Jack asks, trying to shush Alex and calm him down and hear a coherent response._

_“I want them to go away!” he screams, “I want them gone. I don’t want anyone in my fucking house!”_

_“Alex--”_

_“No! I don’t want them here! I hate them! I fucking hate them!” He’s thrashing on the ground. Screaming and screaming until his voice is hoarse, and he’s choking on it, choking on tears, choking on life. Feeling like there is a rope on his neck, and it’s being pulled tighter and tighter every time he tries to breathe. He feels like there is a death sentence hanging over his head._

_“Alex, I’ll make them leave….”_

_“No!” Alex’s cheeks are fresh with a trail of tears. He tries to ignore it and takes a sip from the bottle, trying to drown himself. Trying to die. “They won’t. They’ll be back tomorrow and the next day, and no one even fucking cares that I don’t want to be around anyone.”_

_“Alex.” Jack pulls the bottle from his tight grip, hand still on the back of his neck. “You’re drunk.”_

_And Alex nods, tears still in his eyes before he falls victim to Jack’s touch and collapses against him, limp and weak and tired and just fucking depressed. He feels like a rag doll. Used up and no good. Jack’s chest is warm and comfortable; Alex buries his face deeper inside him. Trying to fold himself into Jack._

_“Alex.” Jack squeezes him, and he sounds sad, himself. As though Alex has done something wrong-- like swallowed dozens of pills or robbed a store or shot a gun. He sounds heartbroken as though Alex has done all those things and more. And this makes Alex cry harder because he thinks he broke Jack._

_“I’m s-sorry,” he cries, vainly._

_“It’s okay, Alex. You’re sick, Alex,” Jack whispers, “So, so sick. And I’m going to help you. You’re going to get better.”_

_Alex can do nothing but nod because he finally realizes they’re both broke._

_That’s when he feels Jack nudging his face. Nudging it away from his chest. And then Jack is looking in his eyes. Jack’s are mirrors to his: puffy and red and stained with tears. Finally, though, Jack closes his sad eyes and leans in to kiss Alex._

_It wasn’t an anti-depressant but it worked so much better._

_And Alex finally thinks he sees a silver lining in this fog._

 

\---

 

“Alex! Alex!” Jack’s voice is shouting in his ear.

“Oh, fuck!” Alex wakes up, realizing he’d fallen asleep on the couch in the midst of his romantic feast fiasco. “Fuck, Jack, the food!”

“…it burned, Alex,” Jack says. He’s standing beside the couch with his hands behind his back; and despite the major setback in tonight’s plans, he’s still smiling.

“I fell asleep,” Alex grumbles, hesitating for a second, “a-and I dreamt of you.”

Jack’s grin grows. “Oh?”

He nods. “About that first time you kissed me.”

“Oh…” Jack looks deep in thought, now, as though he’s remembering everything about that. The depression. The taste of salty tears. The feeling of Alex shaking and quivering beneath his touch. All of it. 

“Fuck!” Alex hisses, again.

“It’s okay, Alex. I brought something.” Jack holds out from behind his back a bag of McDonalds, and Alex fucking laughs.

“Only you would think McDonalds is romantic,” Alex snickers.

“Of course it is, Alex,” Jack scoffs, smiling too as he takes a seat beside Alex on the loveseat. “We can share this Big Mac, and our lips will meet in the middle.”

Alex makes a face. “I don’t know if I wanna be near your lips when you finish that burger.”

“Why not?”

“Because your burps are raunchy, man,” Alex laughs, and it’s almost like he forgot all about the romantic feast and the burned ham and the warm salads…. “Jack?”

“What?”

“I tried to do something romantic for the two of us tonight.”

“I know. Rian told me.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

Alex clears his throat, thinking now or never, as Jack digs into the fast food bag. “Jack? I wanted to tell you how I felt about you.”

“Well don’t.” Jack says, distracted by a mouthful of burger.

Alex frowns. “Why?”

He swivels on the couch, one of his lanky arms sliding around Alex’s waist, as he ignores the bag of food calling their names. “Because you don’t have to, Alex. I know. I feel the same.”

Alex’s pattering heart stops. “W-what?”

“Yeah.” Jack’s lips are now a hairsbreadth distance from Alex. And, fuck, when did Alex lay back on the couch? And when did Jack climb on top of him. He nearly chokes on his own breaths.

“Alex?”

“I love you,” Jack whispers before kissing Alex with his burger breath and cola-tasting lips and everything that Alex is in love with.

Alex doesn’t even care if Jack’s breath should be tasting like ham and salad and buttered bread. Because maybe McDonald’s is fucking romantic.

“Alex?” Jack pulls away from him.

“Yeah?” Alex breathes, shakily.

“This is even better than our first kiss.”


	23. Presents

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The holidays are obviously all about, if you loved me, you’d tear down that mistletoe and those lights and set the tree on fire.

“I don’t see why you had to make a Secret Santa this year.”

“I do every year.”

“B-but… why _that_?” Patrick wrinkles his nose up in disgust, an image that is almost too endearing for Pete as the two of them sit in the middle of the living room surrounded by wrapping paper and tape and bags of presents for the party in two days. 

“Patrick, it’s supposed to be funny.”

“A sex toy exchange isn’t funny. It’s awkward!” the younger exclaims, flabbergasted that such an idea could ever have been invented. Then again, he is Pete Wentz; and his mind has been to the gutters and back. It’s no wonder this thought evolved into actuality.

Originally, though, it had been a joke between him and Joe. The minute Pete had gotten over his fever, he had gone straight over to Joe’s to celebrate with some much needed pot and spent the rest of the evening giggling over Frosty the Snowman. And somewhere, in the foggy part of their brain, an idea was hatched: _wouldn’t it be funny to exchange sex toys for Christmas? Just imagine… having yourself a very kinky Christmas._

Finally, Pete wanted to commit to the idea, and he had made it the official theme for the Secret Santa this year. Patrick, though, looks like he’s still horribly offended by this.

“No one takes it seriously, Trick. It’s all for fun,” Pete tries to assure him as he pulls Travie’s present towards him to wrap: a bundle of porn DVDs- all with fucked up plots and horrific kinks.

He laughs wickedly when Patrick picks up one of the copies to survey it with a disgusted expression. “… _500 Days of Semen_?”

“Who doesn’t love a good gay porn set to Smiths music?”

“You’re disgusting, Wentz!” Patrick accuses, scuttling away from him and crinkling up his nose.

Again, Pete finds it all too endearing… Patrick’s little mannerisms. It’s funny because Pete knows all of Patrick’s twitches and quirks, back-to-front, but they never cease to remind him how in love he is over and over again. And maybe there’s something disturbing about the way he loves Patrick’s nose crinkling in disgust and his forehead creasing as he picks up another move, entitled _Star Whores_.

“You’re disgusting, Wentz.” Patrick shakes his head. Whenever he’s scolding him, Pete finds that Patrick always prefers to use his surname… and Pete is reminded of teachers from high school. Quickly, he pushes the thought of something kinky and sexual that involves him and Patrick as a teacher and student as he goes to wrap the rest of Travie’s present.

“Don’t tell me you went through high school without a single peek at the flip side?” Pete taunts, waving one of the DVDs in Patrick’s direction.

Patrick scoffs, face reddening, regardless. “ _Some_ of us grow out of those phases.”

Pete can’t help but chuckle even as he tries to be intimidating and fear-provoking and a dominant presence in the cherub face of Patrick Stump. But it’s futile. All his efforts are. Because he’s Pete Wentz, and he’s the flame to Patrick’s moth. The catastrophe to the catalyst. The biggest fuck-up seeking a cure, but Pete taints everything he touches. Breaks it. Ruins it. Watches it fall apart.

“That’s what happened to my sanity,” he mumbles to himself.

….

“What?” Patrick is staring at him intently, as though he’s trying to figure this puzzle out- this enigma. Trying to decode Pete and strip him naked of all his smokescreens and mirrors and defenses. Unfortunately, what Patrick doesn’t know is, he’s already left Pete as bare as can be. Now all that’s left is Pete’s heart; and vaguely, he wonders if he can still present it when it’s broken. With a diamond ring around it and an apology note.

Pete shakes his head. “S-sorry, Trick. For being a dick.”

Patrick laughs, “Pete, if I couldn’t take a little teasing, I don’t think the band would have ever left Chicago.” He watches him intently before leaning in to press a hand to Pete’s forehead. Instantly, Pete’s veins feel alight with a fire. As the moth comes closer and closer to the dancing flame…. As the prey approaches the predator. As the boy stares into the abyss. “Are you okay?”

“Sorry,” Pete mutters, “I didn’t mean to, Trick, you know that.”

“Pete, what are you on about?” And this time Patrick sounds upset. He’s worrying his lip, and his eyes are a color of concern Pete’s never witnessed before. They’re blue, he reminds himself, just to stay grounded with reality. They’re icy blue. They’re the color of winter and seas and moth wings.

“I love you,” Pete says, and he hates how desperate he sounds.

Blinking, Patrick returns back with slow, careful words. “I love you, too. I-is that what this is about? Are you okay?”

But Pete had never learned to keep his mouth shut. To let things fall into place. He always jumps head first. And drowns. “How come you never say you’ll marry me?”

“Pete, w-what?!”

“When I propose to you.” Pete stands up, starting to pace. Starting to scratch and pray he can just peel his skin away and become nothing because that’s how Patrick makes him feel sometimes. He hates how he mars that beauty on Patrick - scars it. The porn lay forgotten on the floor. “You always laugh and say no. You always treat it like I don’t mean it.”

“Pete, it’s nothing personal. You just, you proposed to me the first time I met you. What do you expect me to think?” Patrick stands up too, reaching a hand out to make a connection with Pete. To calm the crazy down inside his head like he always does.

But Pete snatches his wrist away. “Maybe it was fate? Destiny? God, you’re so thick sometimes, Trick. Do I have to spell it out in the stars for you?”

“P-pete….” And Pete’s almost forgotten how Patrick stutters when he’s anxious. He’s nearly ignored the fact that the stutters are one step closer to Patrick’s breaking point. But Pete always breaks the good things in his life. What’s one more?

He shakes his head. “Forget it. I’m still woozy from the fever.”

He dares himself not to look in Patrick’s eyes. They’re blue, but they’re not winter blues or sea blues or even blues that Pete could see himself suspended in. They’re just sad, and that breaks Pete’s heart.

“Pete, I don’t understand what you’re trying to tell me.” Patrick’s pleading now. Begging to be let in to that door Pete keeps locked to his mind. The one barrier no one gets past, no matter how much he loves them. It stays locked, so he doesn’t hurt them.

Kicking a copy of _Ebony and Ivory_ across the room, he sulks into the bedroom, heart beating rapidly as he tries not to cry. Tries not to fucking show how much it hurts that Patrick still doesn’t get it. The flame is dying.

“Pete, talk to me,” Patrick begs.

It’s funny how the holidays work, though, the stress of it all. How simply wrapping presents can turn into an existential crisis.

Finally, Pete digs into his pocket, feeling the crisp wrapping paper around a small box against his fingertips. Pulling it out, he throws it through the threshold at Patrick. Trying not to cry. Trying not to look into Patrick’s eyes. Trying not to realize the moth’s wings are burning.

“I meant it every single time,” Pete chokes, “and you laughed it off.”

“P-pete….”

“That’s all I ever wanted for Christmas. Not Secret Santas. Not porn movies. Just… _that_!”

“Pete, don’t be mad,” Patrick sniffs. Pete forgets how fragile he is, too, sometimes. Depression makes him selfish. Depression for Pete is all about Pete. It’s egocentric. It’s all about, if you love me, you’ll put me first. It’s narcissism.

“I’m not mad,” Pete finally manages, but he is. Not at Patrick, though. He’s mad at himself. He’s mad at the tears that spill from his eyes. He’s mad at all the cliché remarks about how much a broken heart hurts. How bad the tears hurt. Because they don’t hurt, and it’s not fair that they don’t hurt because he does. He hurts like hell. “I’m just tired.”

He tries to ignore Patrick’s eyes (his crying eyes) as he closes the door. On Patrick. And on that diamond ring in his hands. The Christmas present.

Merry Christmas.

Pete could fucking care less.

 

\---

 

Depression is all about, if you loved me, you’d let me mope for three days straight

And that’s what Patrick does. He leaves for Joe’s house for three days to let Pete brood. To let him wander around the halls of his house for hours, staring at the mountain of porn that had started it all and the empty box where once an engagement ring had sat.

He tries not to cry.

 

\---

 

Day number two of being Patrick-less is no better.

Pete doesn’t even leave his bed; and instead, he stews around in dirty clothes, watching reruns of _The Nightmare Before Christmas_ and yelling at his pillow for not being nearly as comfortable as Patrick’s compact, little body. He hears carolers outside and yells at them, too, for being too fucking cheerful during the holidays.

The holidays are obviously all about, if you loved me, you’d tear down that mistletoe and those lights and set the tree on fire.

 

\---

 

On the third day, Pete realizes he can’t keep laying in his bed as an unclean, unshaved and unloved mess. Because even Hemingway is fed up with his bullshit and begins slobbering over the pillow until Pete is forced to pull on a thick jacket (so he doesn’t get sick again) and a scarf and drive the slick, icy roads to their guitarist’s house.

Almost expectantly, Patrick answers the door.

Pete stares blankly.

Finally…. “Are you okay?” Patrick whispers. His eyes look puffy, as though he’s been crying for three days, and his breath smells like tea and honey. To Pete, it smells like ambrosia.

“I’m so sorry,” he chokes, again. “I shouldn’t have pushed you. I didn’t know.”

Patrick nods and stares down at their feet, chewing his lip and contemplating what to say. “I-- I liked the present. It’s the nicest thing I’ve ever gotten.”

Something inside Pete bubbles. _Burns_. Something yearns and aches for Patrick, for him to be in his arms again and breathing that tea-and-honey scented breath against Pete’s neck and into the crisp, cold Chicago day. He yearns for them to be snuggled against the couch and watching Tim Burton movies about loves that even theirs could outlast. Because that’s what Pete always figured with Patrick, that they would be everlasting. Amaranthine.

Weakly, Pete manages, “You shouldn’t have opened it before Christmas.”

It only takes three seconds before Patrick is smiling, the giant, toothy smile that would always be too big for his face and too much for Pete’s heart. His fragile, healing heart.

“I didn’t get you anything, yet.”

Pete mirrors Patrick’s grin because, fuck, if he’s missed him. Christmas just isn’t the same without Patrick. He doesn’t even care about proposals or paparazzi or publicity anymore. Just Patrick. 

“There’s still time.”

… “No,” Patrick says this suddenly and firmly, “No, I’m done wasting time, Pete. Because I do love you. I love you a fucking lot, and I’ve always dreamed that I’d settle down and marry some nice girl my parents loved. But that’s not me because I don’t want a nice girl. I want you. I want you for Christmas, Pete. Not some stupid ring. Not porn. Or any other kinky gift. _You_.”

Pete blinks, stupidly. “Me?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.”

They stand like that for some time. Just staring at each other. Breaths hitched. Eyes unblinking. Movements stagnant. But then Pete breaks the tranquility of the December day and moves forward to crash his lips against Patrick’s, feeling the plump lips slide against his and reveling in the remembrance of this touch. Patrick even tastes like honey and tea and sugar and all the good things about holiday mornings. And Pete’s pretty sure he still has morning breath, but Patrick doesn’t seem to care as he yanks Pete closer by his scarf and tries to breathe the same air from Pete’s lungs as though trying to fold themselves into one, single being. 

Behind closed eyelids, Pete sees stars.

“Merry Christmas, Pete,” Patrick mumbles against his lips.

“Patrick?” he murmurs back.

“Yeah.”

“I’m still getting you a kinky present this year. Something so kinky your kids won’t even be able to wear white on their wedding.”

“Pete?” he mumbles again, pressing their lips together tighter.

“Yeah?”

“Shut up.”

And, for once, he does.


	24. Party

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two more drinks later, and Jon thinks he can hardly remember Spencer’s name.

The party comes sooner than either Jon or Spencer could have prepared for. After all, Pete Wentz’s Annual Christmas Party usually signifies the holidays coming to life. Not just the anticipation of the holidays. Those are long gone. Now is the climax. The beginning of the Christmas spirit, personified in one, big, drunken party.

And Jon, he hadn’t even wanted to drink when he and Spencer first trooped out to the party. Instead, he’d preached sobriety to his boyfriend (against his lips and into his mouth); and Spencer had breathed in the promise like it was an eternity. Then, one thing had led to another; and the climax of more than the holiday spirit sent Jon to the party in a giddy tizzy, looking forward to seeing Brendon and Ryan again and bragging to them about love and what it feels like.

Though, Jon can’t really attest to being in love. He’s more ‘in like’ with Spencer than anything else because love means more than a promise not to drink at a party. Love is grander than all the promises that can be breathed in like oxygen. Love is oxygen, and Jon’s not quite suffocating enough yet to want to breath that ambrosia. Not just yet, anyways.

And maybe that’s what ended the entire promise to Spencer, in the first place.

“So you’re in love,” Brendon says at the party. They’re standing around, sipping the fruitiest drinks Pete’s flamer bar serves, after a very kinky present exchange. (“A stuffed cat, Jon,” Travie had laughed and winked, “for when you get lonely at home.”)

“No,” Jon corrects, sipping the drink daintily and finally reveling in what it must feel like to be Brendon Urie. “I like Spencer. We don’t love each other. We’re hardly dating.”

“But you are,” Brendon says, swishing the cherry red liquid in his mouth, thoughtfully. “And you’re in love. You have been for years.”

“We’ve been friends for years, Brendon. There’s a boundary between those two things. Just because you fall in love with a friend doesn’t mean those feelings were always there.”

“Well, they don’t just come out of the blue!” Brendon argues.

Jon shakes his head, grabbing another drink to get through this conversation. He’s not in love. Really. Spencer is… wonderful. Lovely, really. But they’re not in love. “Brendon, no offense, but your relationship with Ryan isn’t exactly…ideal.”

“I know,” Brendon sighs, holding out his left hand, nonetheless, to drool over the engagement ring he’d spent the better half of the party flaunting and cooing over.

It’s nice, Jon admits. Not just the ring but the gesture, itself. Ryan isn’t exactly a commitment kind of person, so Jon’s pretty impressed by the stupid diamond. He may not exactly see the glamour in diamonds to signify a feeling shared between two people; but if it’s enough to make the other smile then maybe it is just enough.

That’s when Spencer makes his way over (through the raining of condoms that Alex Gaskarth and Jack Barakat are throwing around, drunk off their asses and staring at each other like lovesick puppies). Brendon throws his arms around his friend, shoving the diamond right under his nose to show Spencer that this is what love looks like. Love looks like sparkling riches.

“Congratulations, Brendon!” Spencer hugs him back. “Look who I brought to celebrate!”

And that’s when Jon’s stomach falls into the pit of his stomach, and he wishes he’d put a ring on Spencer’s fingers before the holidays. Jon nearly passes out as he sees the ghost of Christmas past: Haley Heckenberg.

 

 

\---

 

“It’s not that bad, Jon,” Ryan tells him, from where the two sit at the couch, watching the party flit by them in shades of red and green Christmas lights.

Ryan had been sitting on the same couch for most of the party, scowling at the festivities and offering Brendon faux smiles whenever his fiancé beams his way and waves. Jon snickers into his drink when he first sees this little exchange. “One little ring and he’s got _you_ whipped?”

“No,” Ryan groans, “it’s this Christmas thing. Brendon hates that I hate Christmas.”

“Is that why you proposed to him?!”

“No, that’s just why I proposed to him in the winter. I love him. I really do, Jon. I guess, it’s like what you and Spencer have now.”

Jon laughs and takes a gulp from his rum and coke, swirling it on his tongue and letting the ice cubes chink against the glass. “You have no clue what Spencer and I have.”

“You’re jealous,” Ryan tells him, quite clearly and quite sober. “And you’re afraid someone better is going to come around and take those feelings you two share and ruin them. That’s why you’re jealous of Haley.”

“I’m not jealous of Haley!”

“That’s why you’ve had two rum and cokes since she got here?” Ryan raises a perfect brow, and Jon decides he really fucking hates their twiggy guitarist.

“Fine,” Jon slurs after another swig, “Maybe I am a little drunk….”

His promise to Spencer lays dead and buried at Haley’s feet.

 

 

\---

 

Two more drinks later, and Jon thinks he can hardly remember Spencer’s name.

 

 

\---

 

A body shot or two more later, and Jon can hardly pronounce the name, Spencer Smith. Or Haley Heckenberg, for that matter.

 

 

\---

 

One beer later, and Jon’s on his knees, sobbing into Pete Wentz’ nearest toilet, clutching his stuffed cat pathetically.

There’s a knock on the door.

“I’m d-dying,” Jon croaks to the tiled ground, “Go away!”

He’s dying. His brain cells are dying. And his heart is dying. All because some ex-girlfriend has to show up from miles and miles away just to steal the person who already stole his heart. How can one boy get two hearts? It’s not fair. It’s not fair, and Jon wants his back. And he’d tell Spencer that if he could work his legs.

“Jon? Jon, I’m coming in.” And Jon means to tell Spencer, _no. No, you can’t come in. You stole my heart; and you can’t come in until I have it back. I loved you, but you love her more than me!_

Instead, Jon lets out a whimper of pain and lets his cheek fall against the cold floor, feeling drunken crocodile tears well up in his eyes. He wipes the vomit from the corner of his mouth and chokes.

“Jon, I thought you weren’t drinking tonight.” Jon really hates Spencer right now. Because Spencer doesn’t sound mad; he doesn’t sound disappointed. Rather… he sounds loving, and caring; and that makes Jon hate the both of them more than he already did.

“I-I hate you,” Jon sobs, coughing and expectorating into the toilet.

“Jon?” Spencer kneels before his boyfriend and places a hand on the nape of his neck, hardly recoiling as Jon’s vomiting body quakes beneath his fingertips. “Jon, what’s wrong?”

“You stole my heart!” Jon screams, or tries to. His voice is hoarse and raspy and used up, too used up for Spencer. “You stole it, and you won’t give it back. I love you. I love you more than her, but y-you’re not s-s-satisfied until you have both our hearts.” He hiccups.

“Jon, I-I love you, too.” Right here is where Spencer sounds tearful. He sounds sad and disappointed as though Jon has done something terrible like swallowed pills or murdered somebody or robbed a liquor store. “Why would I not?”

_“Because you l-love her!”_

Spencer blinks. “Haley?”

Jon nods, pathetically.

“Jon.” And here’s where Spencer pulls Jon away from his current cuddle buddy- the toilet, and pulls him flush against himself. Downstairs, the bass reverberates around the house and drunken voices holler at each other in feeble squabbles. “Jon, I invited Haley to Pete’s party to… get her blessing, I guess. I wanted her to meet my charming boyfriend--”

“A-and instead she met a drunken ass,” Jon groans, burying his head into the crook of Spencer’s neck, boozy breath splaying across the column of skin. He feels tears on his face, feels disappointed like he’d swallowed those pills or murdered somebody or robbed a liquor store or gotten drunk after he promised his boyfriend he wouldn’t.

“You’re not an ass, Jon,” Spencer sighs, “You’re just drunk.”

“I promised I wouldn’t drink,” he whines, slamming his eyes shut in hopes to forget the entire night. In order to forget the disappointment, the pain, and the heartbreak- even temporary heartbreak.

But it’s counterproductive as flashes from the night come to him in transit. Grinding against Brendon… body shots with Pete and the boys from All Time Low… a kiss with some pretty girl named Cassie who had wandered off to find one of the condoms Alex and Jack had been throwing at people before Jon had run off to the bathroom….

Finally, Jon lets out a wail, “I’m so sorry, Spence. I l-love you.”

“I love you, too, Jon.” Spencer cards a hand through his hair. “But I don’t think you needed to get drunk to tell me that.”

Jon tries to laugh, but he can’t feel it through his sore, sticky throat. “I’m sorry, Spence. I danced with Brendon and kissed some pretty girl. I just, I thought you weren’t going to give me my heart back.”

“Well, you’re right about one thing,” Spencer whispers, leaning down to kiss Jon’s temple. “I’m not giving you your heart back. It’s mine.”

Jon wipes his tears against Spencer’s pants and blows his nose on his sleeve. “I hate myself.”

“Don’t.”

“I broke our promise. I cheated on you.”

“Jon, I forgive you because I love you.” Spencer kisses his forehead. “But if you ever do that again, I might have to do something real horrid to your heart.”

Jon chuckles, “S’long as you keep it….”

Spencer smiles. “I will.”


	25. The Night Before Christmas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You know,” Patrick goes on as the graveyard breeze rustles around them. “For a first date, things are going awfully fast. Next you’ll be trying to get the key to my chastity belt or something.”
> 
> Pete shakes his head, chuckling, “Are you kidding? I’m definitely hiring a locksmith for that.”
> 
> “Douche.” Patrick punches him, but he laughs anyways because Pete is Pete and that’s all he’ll ever be.

When Pete wakes the next morning, it’s with a major hangover and a hearty groan. He rolls over in the warm sheets, trying to snuggle deeper and deeper into the heat until he notices that Patrick’s not beside him. Patrick’s warmth is missing.

It’s not like this is completely foreign to Pete. Often times, he’ll wake up and discover Patrick’s absence- off galumphing in the living room with Hemingway or locked away in the basement with his Mac, messing with Garageband for hours. No, Pete’s used to Patrick being absent from their bed. He’s just not used to Patrick’s absence when he’s cranky and hungover.

Pete hadn’t even had a lot to drink at the kinky Sexmas Party last night. Rather, after a few body shots and mixed drinks, he’d decided to retire early to attend to more important things. Like a personal Merry Sexmas celebration with Patrick in the bedroom. Pete smiles at the memory, sprawling out on the bed and feeling the leftover warmth from Patrick’s spot radiate against his body.

Mornings after sex are usually spent with very long post-coital cuddling, and that’s always the best part, in Pete’s opinion. Laying side by side, listening to the _beat beat beat_ of Patrick’s heart and hearing it speed up or slow down as Pete runs fingers along the contours of his body and the pressure points of his neck, often times tracing them with his tongue as well.

“Patrick?!” Pete calls into the big, and hopefully empty, house.

Patrick doesn’t answer. Promptly, Pete sits up on the bed, turns around to stretch out his back and sees…a slip of paper taped to the headboard of his bed. Curiously, he grabs it and sees Patrick’s neat scrawl on the paper. 

_To find your present, go to the first place we kissed this holiday._

Pete scrunches up his face. A scavenger hunt? He vaguely wonders if Patrick is sick or something. Patrick never does enigmatic riddles; that’s Pete’s forte. Rather, Patrick avoids riddles and tricks because he knows how frustrating it is to be on the other side of those. To be a pawn in a game of cat-and-mouse. 

Abandoning the comfort of his bed, Pete glances over at Hemingway. “Sometimes you’re lucky you’re single, Hem.”

Hemingway just stares, and Pete leaves him in the bedroom to travel down to the first place they kissed the holiday. He remembers it clearly. They’d just pulled Pete’s artificial tree out of his basement and set it up, lights and ornaments and all.

_Patrick sits on the side of the couch, staring at the silvery tree with the tinsel around it and the colorful lights and the gold and red and blue and green bulbs that hang from it. He smiles, it’s small, but it’s also intimate. Like this is a secret between the two of them._

_“What’s wrong, Trick?” Pete asks him, noticing his expression and taking a seat beside his boyfriend, carefully observing his face for any signs of a problem etched on it._

_“Nothing,” Patrick whispers back, “this is perfect.”_

_“It’s just a tree,” Pete tells him, but the look on Patrick’s face has him grinning wildly._

_That’s one of the things best about Patrick, he supposes. His happiness is contagious. Seeing Patrick so calm and sedated, well, that’s enough to send anyone into a happy high. Or maybe it’s seeing someone you love happy because of you. Because they love you back. Because this is as requited as love can get._

_“Not just the tree, Pete. This holiday. So far, everything’s been so perfect.” He catches Pete’s eyes. Baby blues boring into wide-eyed browns. “Thank you.”_

_That’s when Pete closes his eyes and leans in to kiss his own slice of perfection against the backdrop of the holiday season. Around them, the tree tinkles and the wind knocks at the windows, but Pete presses his lips to Patrick’s in the most honest and requited way he can think of. Completely chaste. Just love. Pure, unadulterated and uncensored love._

_And as Patrick kisses back, Pete wonders why they still aren’t married._

Scanning the tree, desperately, Pete finds something that looks a bit off. A homemade ornament, a red bulb with white writing across it: _Thank you._

Remembering the memory, Pete grabs the bulb and twists it open, smiling when he sees a slip of paper inside it. He pulls it out: _To find your present, go to the place we first realized we were in love._

Pete crumples the paper and slides it in his pocket, scanning his memory of Chicago, desperately seeking the place where he and Patrick first proclaimed their love for each other.

He remembers the moment. It was spring. The warm March air was coasting against the both of their faces, bringing with it a chill from the lake. He remembers the way Patrick’s mouth had opened, no words coming out, rather a blush heating his entire face up. And Pete remembers the way he’d crashed their lips together, frantically, as though Patrick were going to slip from his fingers at any given moment.

He remembers the events leading up to that moment, as well. The long nights without sleep, laying awake and watching lyrics dance in his head, yet never cross his pen. He remembers forgetting hours, days, and weeks, until his life had become a flicker of black-outs and memory loss.

_“Pete, are you okay?” Patrick sounds small under the roar of the lake breeze._

_Pete’s standing on the roof of another hotel, watching the Illinois horizon dance in the night, the celestial bodies above joining it on its practiced waltz. The blacks and blues of the sky melt down to the ground, like a syrupy concoction waiting to explode in the light of the moon._

_“Fine. Just thinking.”_

_“Pete, what’s wrong?” Patrick sounds worried under the roar of Pete’s mind. The thoughts and doubts that haunt him and keep him awake. “Have you been sleeping?”_

_“I’m fine, Patrick,” he says, a bit harsher than he’d like, “I’m just thinking.”_

_“Pete, seriously, what’s wrong?”_

_That’s when Pete takes two steps forward, two tiny steps towards the edge. As though he could step off and fly. As though he would float to the ground. Or, perhaps, it would be to see if the infamous Pete Wentz could survive a mouthful of concrete._

_“Pete?!” Patrick’s voice squeaks fearfully. He reaches out, cautiously, and grabs at Pete’s hand. “Don’t do this.”_

_“Why, Trick?” Pete chokes, “Why don’t the words make any sense at all?”_

_“Pete, I don’t know,” he says honestly, gulping, and squeezing Pete’s hand so that it would be impossible for the bassist to float away from him. “Pete, if you jump, I jump.”_

_A smile ghosts across Pete’s face. “Titanic much, Patrick?”_

_“P-pete,” he stammers, “I mean it.”_

_That’s when Pete spins on his heel and grabs Patrick’s face, his brown eyes desperately seeking Patrick’s silvery blue ones, scanning them for a sign of those words. Those three honest words reflected in the pupils. Finally, he crashes their lips together in the most desperate way possible. As though both of them are going to jump. As though the distance between them is far too great, yet far too little at the same time. Pete kisses Patrick like a lifeline._

_“Pete, Pete,” Patrick breathes, saying his name like a prayer, “I love you.”_

_“I know.” And Pete’s crying, and he doesn’t know why. Hot tears are splaying down his cheeks, wetting Patrick’s cheeks which are pressed so tight to his. He chokes on his own misery and holds_

_Patrick close. “I love you, too, Patrick. Don’t leave me.”_

_“Is that what this was about?” Patrick grabs Pete’s face sternly. “Pete, I’d never leave you. Ever.”_

_And ever became a long time, indeed._

Pete makes it to the hotel roof, slyly. Avoiding the hotel staff and using his fame to help make his way through some of the trickier hotel staff, like the managers and supervisors who all remembered Fall Out Boy. After all, it’s a fairly small town hotel, but the view is spectacular. And that’s enough for Pete when he makes it to the roof and stares around at the adjoining rooftops and the Chicago skyline hanging right in front of him, as though he could swipe the clouds from the sky and hold their wispy forms in his hand. As though he were standing on a cloud, itself.

Stepping close to the edge, where Pete had professed his love to Patrick so many years ago, he notices something small and scrawled in chalk on the concrete floor. Bending down, under closer surveillance, he notices Patrick’s writing there, bold and blaring: _go to the place where our first date was._

Pete smiles, turning on his heel; and with a beating heart, he rushes away from the hotel. He remembers that moment, too. That had been the most perfect of all moments in his lifetime. He’d taken Patrick to a graveyard, nothing romantic or morbid or anything like that. It had simply meant to be a peaceful walk and a quick visit to Pete’s grandmother who had passed that summer. 

Roses in hand, they’d walked along the tombstones, above corpses, wondering aloud whether or not the afterlife held anything promising.

_“I’d like to think there’s something up there,” Patrick says, staring at the blue sky overhead. The sun shone down in his hair and lit it up like honeycombs, while the last wafts of clouds dissolved in the sky._

_“There is,” Pete assures him, squeezing his hand and stealing a glance at Patrick’s grin in the sunlight. The way his eyes crinkled. The tiny, barely-there dimples. The way his eyes glistened._

_“How do you know?” Patrick asks, still young and a little bit naïve. “You think dying is lonely, Pete?”_

_“Nah.” Pete stops in his tracks, turning towards Patrick and pulling him flush against him. “I think death is where you find your soul mate… if you haven’t already.”_

_“…have you?”_

_Pete grins, goofy. “Yeah, I reckon I have.”_

_“You know,” Patrick goes on as the graveyard breeze rustles around them. “For a first date, things are going awfully fast. Next you’ll be trying to get the key to my chastity belt or something.”_

_Pete shakes his head, chuckling, “Are you kidding? I’m definitely hiring a locksmith for that.”_

_“Douche.” Patrick punches him, but he laughs anyways because Pete is Pete and that’s all he’ll ever be. And that’s all Patrick ever wants him to be._

Nearly sprinting to the graveyard, Pete’s garnering a fair bit of attention, but he hardly minds. Because his blood is boiling and his veins are on fire, and his legs feel like giant pieces of lead to carry along. But nothing matters. Nothing matters because Patrick’s present is at the graveyard, he feels it.

Soon, he’ll be reunited with Patrick.

He makes his way through the graveyard, past the tombstones and the dying flowers and the artificial roses and the sentimental gifts before he skids to a stop in front of his grandmother’s graveyard. The site of their first true date.

And Pete tells himself not to fucking cry.

Patrick’s there, but he’s not standing or sitting or anything in between. He’s kneeling. He’s fucking kneeling on his right knee and holding a ring between his fingers.

Pete’s paralyzed.

“You found me,” Patrick whispers, voice full of rich emotion.

Pete nods, speechless.

“I-- I’m sorry… for earlier,” he reminds him of their fight, “I love you, Pete. I do. You’re right, though. About the publicity. I don’t care who knows because I love you, and that’s all that matters and I--”

“Yes,” Pete breathes out a sigh. “Fuck yes.”

Patrick doesn’t even get to finish the rest of the proposal, but it hardly matters. He stands up from the snowy ground, knee now wet and frozen, and Pete pulls him into a hug, letting the ring slide along his left finger and relishing the golden band and the way it shines the same color as Patrick’s hair. 

Then, he presses their lips together in the most chaste and requited way possibly. Repeating over and over, “Yes.”

“Merry Christmas,” Patrick mumbles back.

“It’s Christmas Eve,” Pete teases.

“And we’ll be engaged on Christmas,” is all Patrick can respond back. 

Because, really, what else do you say to that?


	26. Christmas Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anyone who’s ever been in love knows how hard it is to fall out of. It’s like trying to will yourself to sleep after a couple of energy drinks and maybe a pot of coffee. It keeps you awake at night, jittery and foolish. It gnaws at you until all that’s left of you is a pile of bones and flesh pulled taut over them, until you’re sickly looking. Until you’re lovesick.

Outside, the wind howls against the window in wake of the oncoming blizzard. It scratches and knocks at the glass, hoping someone inside will let the cold in to claw and nip at their skin. But no one does. In fact, Frank Iero lays awake in the dead of the night, listening to the screaming of wind against glass and the silent sounds of snow falling against the ground.

Frank yawns and rolls over, unable to sleep. For the better part of the night, he’s been up, listening to the soft snores of Gerard in his bedroom and letting the horrid springs of the couch dig into his back until he wonders why he sacrifices his health for Gerard. Why he sacrifices anything for an unrequited love.

He looks over at the clock, blaring red against the nowhere hours, and sees it’s already Christmas. _Merry fuckin’ Christmas,_ he thinks in a jaded tone, _you’re spending it all alone when the love of your life is one room over._

But Frank tries not to think about that. He tries not to think about the way Gerard’s eyes lit up like they never had when they were baking cookies just a couple of weeks ago. He tries not to think about the way his friend’s tongue had darted out, pink and pale and oh so tempting, to lick away the white icing on his chin. He tries not to think about the way Gerard’s breath, mingled with the flavor of cigarettes, had smelt so strongly of peppermint when they were addressing candy cane-grams. And he definitely tries not to think about the way he had tasted when he had kissed him under the mistletoe. Like candy and chocolate and sweets and a hint of coffee that never seemed to leave his mouth. Frank tries not to think about all this, but he does anyway.

Because he can’t get Gerard out of his head. Can’t will the heartthrob away anymore than he can just fall out of love.

Anyone who’s ever been in love knows how hard it is to fall out of. It’s like trying to will yourself to sleep after a couple of energy drinks and maybe a pot of coffee. It keeps you awake at night, jittery and foolish. It gnaws at you until all that’s left of you is a pile of bones and flesh pulled taut over them, until you’re sickly looking. Until you’re lovesick.

Frank’s not sure whether he’s lovesick or heartbroken.

And he definitely can’t fall asleep.

He rolls over, yet again, trying to think of the possibilities of falling in love with Gerard. The perks. Sure, there will be setbacks- there’s always setbacks: painful memories, pasts that can’t be erased, anxiety, depression…. But there’s also advantages to it, and Frank can’t help but think that the beauty in falling in love with Gerard outweighs the tragedy of it all.

He tries to imagine them a proper couple. Holding hands while walking from the bus to the venue. Tasting that hint of peppermint lingering on Gerard’s tongue as he sucks on the candy, tempting Frank. Enjoying the first snowfall of the Christmas Day, in bed, together. He tries to imagine them a proper couple, but every time he does, Frank is met with the cold reality that is his life.

Gerard and Frank aren’t anymore a perfect couple than Gerard and Lyn-Z would be. There isn’t handholding and peppermint kisses and long walks to the middle of nowhere, holding hands and not being afraid with somebody by your side. There’s no waking up to Christmas together. There’s no romance. Gerard thinks Frank is nothing, and that’s what Frank feels like, now.

He feels like a fallen snowflake. A single, insignificant flake in the great scheme of a significant blizzard. He feels trodden on until he’s worn and nearly invisible across the flat land. Frank is nothing. Nothing without Gerard.

And that’s when it happens. That’s when it eats and eats at him until he’s a pile of bones pulled taut with waxy, unappealing skin. That’s when Frank feels the full diagnosis of lovesick hit him, and he realizes that it’s Christmas Day. It’s Christmas Day, and it’s the only day on the calendar that permits miracles. And it’s better to be heartbroken than lovesick….

So he gets up from the horrible back-killing couch, hearing the springs groan from his movement, and pads over to Gerard’s door, slowly and quietly, as though afraid to wake even a mouse.

His heart hammers as he pauses outside the door, ear pressed to the wood and listening to Gerard’s snores trickle through the threshold. Listening to his breathing. The soft exhales and softer inhales, rhythmic like the _beat beat beating_ of Frank’s heart in the middle of the night.

Finally, though, he pushes the door open, just as mute as his previous motions had been. He enters the room, feeling more like an intruder than a friend and watches Gerard in his sleep. The way his black hair curls around his forehead in thin locks, the way it practically shines in light of the sliver of the full moon that had also broken into Gerard’s bedroom, via the lopsided blinds. The pale of his face just as white as the falling snow outside. The reverie in Gerard’s face as he sleeps, lips smacking as though dreaming is finally better than reality. No more nightmares. Just paradise.

Feeling as though he’s already walking to his death, Frank reaches the bed and takes a seat near Gerard’s feet, who’s curled up in a fetal position and still snoring softy. Still snoring like the _beat beat beating_ of Frank’s lovesick heart.

Heart hammering, he prods Gerard’s sleeping form.

The man snuffles in his sleep but remains motionless.

Frank does it again, this time harder, and whispers, “Gerard, wake up.”

A couple of pokes later, Gerard’s eyes blink open, adjusting to the scene around him. To the snow falling outside and the moon creeping in his room and Frank sitting at the edge of his bed, staring down upon him like nothing could be better this Christmas Day.

“F-Frankie?” He yawns.

“Hey.” Frank smiles apologetically.

“What’s up?” Gerard asks casually, sitting up in his bed as though it isn’t the middle of the night, on Christmas Day, and Frank isn’t in his room waking him up.

“Merry Christmas,” Frank says unsurely, still smiling because it’s Gerard and he shouldn’t be nervous around Gerard.

This is the same man who’d been a scared boy going off to college once. Who had been promised a bottled star once. Who had readily accepted it.

“I can’t sleep,” Frank says.

And Gerard laughs. He fucking laughs. “Frank, we’re not kids anymore. Don’t be nervous about Santa coming into your room.”

The corners of Frank’s mouth tug into a smile because this is still Gerard. Just because he’s lovesick doesn’t mean Gerard’s changed. “But he might touch my willy?”

“Santa’s got his own to touch.” Gerard winks, and Frank snorts. They sit like that for a few moments, laughing and enjoying the magic of Christmas in the moonlight before Gerard finally frowns.

“Frank, are you okay?”

“What do you mean?”

Gerard sighs, “This entire Christmas you’ve been acting weird. And I-I know what it is.”

“You do?”

“Yeah,” and, here, Gerard chokes as though he doesn’t want to continue. As though he doesn’t want to tell Frank how pathetic he is for having a sick, little crush on his best friend. “I do, a-and I’m sorry, Frank. I really am. I can’t change my past. I can’t change what happened with Bert and the drugs and the drinking and the self-harm. I wish I could, but I can’t. A-and you’re going to have to accept that. You’re going to have to accept my past because I can’t change it for you.”

Frank blinks.

Once.

Twice.

Thrice.

“ _What?!_ ”

“That’s why you’ve been so weird around me, isn’t it?” Gerard blinks, himself. “Because of what I did to all of you last year. Because I succumbed to the monsters of addiction, right?”

“Gerard, _no!_ ” Frank nearly pleads with his friend. “Th-that’s… you’re wrong.”

“What?”

“You’re wrong!” And Frank finds himself yelling. Yelling at the love of his life, sleeping and curled up in his bed. “Because I don’t care about your past, Gerard. I don’t care about your mistakes because all those are what make you… _you_. And I think you’re pretty fucking perfect. _That’s_ why I’ve been so weird around you, okay? It’s not because I’m ashamed of your past; it’s because I’m ashamed of the way I feel about you. You’re my best friend, and that’s still not enough, Gerard. I want you, okay? All of you. Your past, your mistakes, your addictions, your monsters…. I would take them all headfirst if it means I can have you.”

“W-what?” Gerard repeats, awestruck.

Frank feels his mouth go dry and his heart rip from his chest as though this lovesickness is destroying him as they speak. “For you, I’d take on the world.”

Silence. It falls fragile between them, hanging on a thread of tranquility that does nothing to calm Frank down. Rather, it eats away at him. At his bones. At his flesh. At the sinewy strings of his heart. At everything until he feels like he’s finally nothing in front of Gerard.

And that’s when it happens.

Gerard sits up, properly, in bed and leans towards Frank. And Frank knows this isn’t a hit or a punch, so he prepares himself. He slams his eyes shut tight as though afraid this is a dream he’s going to wake up from. He tries to prepare himself, but nothing can prepare him for the way Gerard’s lips crush against his own.

It’s rough and needy and animalistic, not something that those cheesy love stories talk about. Soft and smooth and beautiful. This is real, Frank thinks, this is passion. Gerard’s lips slide against his almost feral-like until he’s slipping his tongue in Frank’s mouth and exploring every contour of his mouth and every bump on his tongue and every groove in his teeth. Gerard tastes like sleep and what could be leftover toothpaste and tea hanging around his mouth, but Frank doesn’t care because he tastes like shit too. He tastes like stale chocolate and sleep and lovesickness and everything that should taste pathetic but has never been so good when it’s against Gerard’s mouth.

They taste the reality of each other for the first time.

Finally, Gerard breaks away and smiles against Frank’s lips. “I’ve been waiting for you to say that to me all Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas?” Frank offers.

And Gerard laughs, lips still pressed against Frank’s as though afraid of separating them again. As though this separation will send them further apart than the holidays had.

“I have a present for you, as well.” 

Gerard properly pulls away from Frank, and automatically the younger misses his warmth, but he dismisses that thought as he watches Gerard dig into his nightstand and pull out something red and white and something Frank’s never thought of as such a threat before.

A candy cane.

“Gerard, wha-”

“Shh.” Gerard silences him with a peck of his lips. “Remember when you got mad at me for sending one to Lyn-Z? W-well, I never actually sent one to her. I- I addressed it to you.”

Gerard holds it out for him to take, and Frank accepts it with trembling fingers. There’s a note attached to the candy cane with a green bow. And in the note, Frank can see the tiny, loopy scrawl of Gerard’s, tucked tight in it. He tries to read it, but his breathing is constricted and he can’t even breathe properly.

The note on the candy cane reads: _All I want for Christmas is you._

“I’m sorry,” Gerard says with an air of finality, “For abandoning you when the drugs took over, Frank. For abandoning you this holiday. For treating you the way I have. I just… I was afraid I’d already lost you. I was afraid that things weren’t going to be able to work between us, anymore. A-and I wanted you as a friend… than nothing at all.”

Frank forgets completely why Gerard ever made him feel like nothing.

“Merry Christmas, Frank,” Gerard says and smashes their lips together again.

And Frank finally knows what it feels like to be in love.


	27. Snowed In

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You’re never losing me.” Jon wraps an arm around Spencer’s waist and tugs him into his lap. The tea lay forgotten beside them. “Remember that, Spencer. Me. You. Even Brendon and Ryan. We’re together, always, okay?”

The snow comes down it droves. It covers Chicago in thick blankets, quilts that block roads, and the temperature drops until there’s nothing but a sheen of ice across the slick, slushy roads as the hail rains down. The blizzard hits and knocks out satellites and electrical lines, and Jon Walker and Spencer Smith bear the brunt of it all, snowed in at Jon’s place with nothing but a roaring fireplace and cats.

“This is cozy,” Spencer says, sitting by the fire with a cup of tea in his hands, fresh and hot.

Jon had just finished lighting candles and sits beside his… (what could he even call Spencer?) boyfriend (because Jon can’t find a better word that aptly depicts the two of them together), throwing an arm around him nonchalantly and pulling him close. Hot tea sputters onto the blanket.

“How long do you think we’ll be snowed in for?” Jon asks, staring out the window at the howling winds and sideways snow and hail that pours down and patters threateningly on the roof.

Spencer shrugs, sipping his tea. “Could be hours. Days. _Months_. Even _years!_ ” At this, he gasps dramatically causing Jon to laugh.

“Spence, I’d spend a lifetime snowed in with you, if I could,” Jon lets slip. He nearly gasps and covers his mouth immediately, blushing furiously under the icy blue eyes from Spencer. They stare at each other for several moments: Jon, unsure how Spencer will take such a confession and Spencer, enigmatically unreadable.

“Would you really?” he finally murmurs into the tranquil room where nothing but the crackling of the fire sounds.

Jon clears his throat, but his voice is lost somewhere in his trachea, and he abandons the attempt at trying to form proper vowels and consonants. The words are somewhere far from the cognitive region of his mind, where nothing but a plethora of Spencer had entered. Instead, he nods.

Like instinct, Spencer snuggles in close to Jon, nuzzling against his neck and dotting kisses along the pale column of skin, making his way to the grizzly hairs of Jon’s beard that surround his throat. “Me too.”

Feeling his mouth dry, Jon licks his lips and remembers a picture book from his childhood that pertinently resembles what this scene looks like, with them snuggled on the hearth and staring at the crackling flames that gambol across the red brick of the pit. With the moon hanging out and spilling into the room like an ocean of silver shine that refuses to dissipate from the floorboards of the room. Jon remembers an old storybook called ‘Goodnight Moon’ and doesn’t think he’s found anything more appropriate for this setting with Spencer at his side.

Goodnight, moon. Goodnight, you.

Jon would spend his entire night kissing Spencer goodnight, if he could.

“Jon,” Spencer whispers, “I think, if we survive this storm, we can survive living together.”

Jon nods absently, squeezing Spencer tighter and tighter to him as though afraid he’s going to blow away with the oncoming storm. “I think so, Spence.”

“Jon?”

“Yeah?”

“Why do you like me so much?” Spencer asks, pulling away a little from his boyfriend and sitting on the balls of his feet, bobbing a little at the anticipation of the question.

This leaves Jon stumped. Why does he like Spencer? That question hardly seems to cover anything that he wants to say about the boy. About his cherub face and his flawless smile, the way his teeth spill forth and expose his gums a little, and the soft expanses of skin that Jon’s only ever been able to discover once, but that still hadn’t been enough for him and he had been addicted to Spencer’s flesh for sometime: the way it became red and warm when worked up, the way Spencer would break into a sweat across his entire body, beads of water dripping from his chest to his navel. It had made Spencer look so beautiful, head tipped back in ecstasy and mouth forming a perfect ring as his moans bounced against the four walls of the bedroom.

Jon remembers after that perfect moment of making love (for Jon is also lacking a word to better describe the scene because sex sounds too informal, not beautiful enough compared to the way Spencer had looked that night) of laying next to Spencer, the duvet kicked at their feet and pooling around their ankles. Jon had traced his sweating, pink body with a finger, tracing out intricate designs and words that Spencer could hardly make out in his post-coital daze. His eyes had been glazed over until they seemed electric, and his skin had been sensitive to the touch. Jon remembers touching every inch of his skin and watching him tremble and shake and quail beneath his ministrations. He remembers the way Spencer had whispered to him, “Don’t stop.”

Finally, Jon shrugs, “I can’t explain it, Spencer. You’re… you’re fucking perfect.”

Spencer blushes, and all Jon can think about is his skin. “Stop it. I’m being serious.”

“So am I!” Jon grabs Spencer’s hand and squeezes it against his own, kissing the individual digits and letting his lips linger for a few seconds against his flesh. “Spence, you don’t realize some of the things you do that kill me. The way you bob on your feet when you’re waiting for something, the way your skin feels and blushes and heats up when I’m near, the way your eyes shine in the light of the moon, and fuck I know I sound like a flamer, but you’re the closest to perfection that I think I’ve ever been.”

Spencer’s lip trembles, and Jon wants to lean forward and kiss all the worry and fear and surprise off of them. He wants to breathe confidence into Spencer with each exhale. “Y-you mean all that?”

“Course I do. I would never lie to you, Spence,” he whispers.

The atmosphere demands lowered voices, Jon realizes. It’s fragile, the air permeating around them. The degrees it could break is vast and large, and one wrong word could spin this little orbit they’ve got going on out of control. It could combust. Break into a thousand shards. Shatter. 

“Jon.” Spencer is still trembling, just like he does after sex, but this is different. This isn’t needy and frustrated; this is sentimental and soft and lovely. “I-I thought, when we first kissed, that this was the end. That I’d screwed things up. A-nd I thought to myself, ‘How can you be so stupid to think that this amazing boy likes you?’ I thought that I’d ruined all our friendship. B-because, Jon, if I can’t have you like this, then I wanted you as a friend, b-but that’s not the case anymore. See, I can’t not have you like this.” He motions between the two of us and leans forward to peck Jon’s lips, biting the bottom as though to enunciate his point. “Because this is the happiest I’ve ever been. With you, I feel something. And I don’t know what it is, and I’m afraid to name it, but I never want to lose it.”

“You’re never losing me.” Jon wraps an arm around Spencer’s waist and tugs him into his lap. The tea lay forgotten beside them. “Remember that, Spencer. Me. You. Even Brendon and Ryan. We’re together, always, okay?”

Spencer nods. His lip is no longer trembling; instead, he’s biting it. Biting back tears, but they threaten his eyes and soon spill forth until he’s quaking against Jon and buried his face against his neck, crying into the crook of it.

“Spence, what’s wrong?”

“Jon, I think you’re my soul mate,” he sobs.

“But you’re crying.”

But soon Jon is crying, too, and he thinks this is really flamer of him to cry over this, but he can hardly help it. He’d never felt this way about anyone before; he’s never had someone to share secrets with and laughs and tears and even hot, needy kisses in the middle of the night. Someone to hold him close and know him deep. Someone to ruin his sleep and put him through hell. Someone who makes Jon aware of being alive.

He’s never truly known what it was like, being alive. Having something to wake up for each and every day. Often, Jon would self-medicate with alcohol and cannabis when he woke up and saw the space next to him, empty and deserted. But now, Jon understands. He understands all those songs on the radio and those winter romance comedies with Ashton Kutcher in them. He understands them because of Spencer Smith.

Spencer’s body slows, and soon he’s no longer crying. Instead, he’s merely cradling himself close to Jon, humming a wistful song into his ear before whispering, “You’re my soul mate, Jon Walker, and I wouldn’t trade you for anything.”

“Good.” Jon tightens his grip. “Because I’m not going anywhere. Not without you, at least.”

… “How did we get like this?”

“Like what?”

“Well,” Spencer bites his lip again and Jon sees teeth marks from before, sees how red they are against the pale of his skin (Jon’s never wanted to taste something more his entire life, but he listens to him speak, instead), “just the other week, we were just friends; and now, now we’re soul mates. How did this even happen?”

Jon shrugs. “When you love someone, time doesn’t matter.”

Spencer’s breath hitches. “Do you love me?”

And all Jon can think about is Spencer’s skin. The way it feels beneath his touch, the way it quivers and contorts to his will, the way it purples from Jon’s teeth and reddens from his lips, the way it responds to him as though it, too, is burning from something deeper. Finally, he nods. “Yes. I love you, Spencer Smith.”

A blush creeps onto the other boy’s face, and his grin breaks out like the crescent shape of the moon, itself. “I love you, too, Jon. I love you so much.”

Not wasting any time, Jon pushes Spencer back against the ground and climbs on top of him, kissing him furiously and watching the deep red of his lips and the way they pant and breathe rapidly with every press of their lips together. The way his teeth poke out and bite Jon’s bottom lip, a white palette of colors making love to the cherry red Jon’s lips are turning with every push of lips against the other.

The fireplace sends their shadows dancing on the walls, behind them, intertwined against the stark velvety backdrop of a star-strewn sky.

And Jon leans down to taste every inch of Spencer Smith. His soul mate.


	28. Blizzard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Brendon, that’s where I keep my spices!”
> 
> “Ryan, I’m offering myself here to you, and you’re worried about your paprika?”

They lay tangled up in each other. He can feel his toes curling beneath the duvet and his breath a soft hush against the nape of his neck. He can feel the arm around his waist tighten and loosen with every inhale and exhale of his breath. Pressed back to chest, Brendon and Ryan may as well have been dead to the world that December morning. Unfortunately for Ryan, Brendon’s always been a little more than hyper in the mornings; and he shows it as he squirms in his fiancé’s grip, smiling toothily at how serene Ryan looks resting.

His mouth is agape slightly, and his breath is blowing a dangling strand of hair in his face this way and that. A soft snore issues from him, and Brendon giggles. He leans forward to plant a rather wet kiss on Ryan’s open lips. When the other boy doesn’t wake up, he frowns and does it again. And again. And again….

Ryan’s eyes finally flutter open, and Brendon can count the different shades in the honeyed iris that he’d fallen in love with over their years together.

“Ry.” Brendon smiles, finding that single syllable sums up everything he wants to say to the other man.

“Bren.” Ryan smiles back, and it’s refreshing to see his lover not frown because of the frosty month of December. It’s refreshing to see him smile despite the Christmas euphoria still settled over the house.

“I love you,” Brendon reminds him, reaching under the covers to grab his hand and intertwining their fingers. The ring around his finger is cool and brisk against Ryan’s own fingers, but the other still smiles back. Big and large and childish as though he’d just woken up on Christmas morning.

“I love you, too, Brendon,” Ryan says, “I love you the way you love Christmas.”

Brendon hums, content. “What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Do you love Christmas?”

It had been a question nagging the back of Brendon’s mind ever since their engagement in the snow-capped mountains of Denver. Even with the flakes falling on his face and the wind tousling his hair and Ryan in the middle where heaven and paradise met. Even with all this, Brendon still wonders whether or not Ryan had fallen in love with the holiday season.

“Brendon,” Ryan sighs, biting his lip as though biting back a response. “I-it’s hard. The past… it doesn’t just go away.”

“No,” agrees Brendon, “but you can mitigate it by looking at the future?”

Outside the blizzard that had snowed the citizens of Chicago in roars around them. It knocks at the glass and howls into the air and plummets snow into the rain gutters, but Brendon and Ryan both ignore it, locked in their own little bliss.

The heater kicks on in the corner of the room, sputtering and clunking the way it always would because of the age of the house. The two of them ignore it, both melting into the other’s eyes, hand tangled in each other and legs tangled in each other and breath mingled. Together.

“Brendon, for you, I could love Christmas,” Ryan says slowly, smiling as he says it, as though this is the moment the two of them have been waiting for.

As though this was the antidote to everything between them. 

And, just maybe, it was.

 

\---

 

It’s noon by the time the two decide to grace the morning and pad down to the kitchen (after a long and steamy shower, of course) and start the kettle for afternoon tea and begin making eggs, despite the clock arguing otherwise.

“I love you,” Ryan says for the hundredth time that morning, walking up behind a shirtless Brendon and placing a kiss upon his shoulder. Brendon leans back and smiles at the caress.

“You know,” Brendon waggles his brows, “I don’t think we’ve had time to christen your kitchen yet.”

“Brendon, we’re not having sex in the kitchen. It’s unsanitary.”

“It’s hot.” Brendon then proceeds to climb up onto a counter nearby the sizzling stove. It hisses at him in retaliation, but he ignores the blue flames.

“Brendon, that’s where I keep my spices!”

“Ryan, I’m offering myself here to you, and you’re worried about your paprika?”

Ryan makes an irritated growl in the back of his throat. “You’re gonna get your ass burned.”

“Ooh!” Brendon cackles in a high falsetto. “Then save me, Ryan.”

“My god,” Ryan groans, “is this what cabin fever does to you?”

Brendon giggles, slap happy about the morning’s progression of events, and jumps down from the counter. He likes pissing Ryan off from time to time. Likes watching the vein in his forehead bulge a bit, watch him clench his teeth as tight as his fists, likes to watch him turn pink and red and blue in the face until he’s wheezing at Brendon.

He playfully slaps Ryan’s cheek. “I won’t let anything near my ass. That’s all yours.”

Ryan takes a seat, cradling his head in his hands. “You’re going to be the death of me, Brendon.”

“What’s life without a little risk, eh?”

Ryan tips his head back against the seat and sighs. “Serene.”

Scrambling the eggs, Brendon ignores Ryan. He knows he doesn’t mean it. Knows his lover loves the way that Brendon is sometimes overdramatic and overactive and over-everything. It makes for a bit of adventure that Ryan secretly revels in. Without Brendon, Ryan would never have garnered up the impulse to take them to Denver and propose to him in light of the Christmas holiday. Would never have had the courage to face the holiday head-on.

“Ryan?”

“Hm?”

“You know, I mean it when I say that I want you to love Christmas, right? I mean it when I say that the past is the past. Daddy isn’t coming home drunk, and he isn’t going to hurt you, and he’s never going back to the hospital again.”

Ryan’s lip trembles at that, but his face remains stoic. “Bren--”

“No, Ryan, because you need to understand this.” He crouches down beside Ryan and grabs his hands in his, kneading the fingers and lacing them together. “Because you need to make peace with the past now. It’s done haunting you, Ry. It left long ago. You’re just holding onto the remnants.”

“Brendon, I wish it were that easy.” His lip wobbles again.

“It is that easy!” urges Brendon. “If you let it be, it can be that easy. I promise you, Ryan. I promise you, a thousand times over, that I will never let anything hurt you this Christmas.”

“W-what happens when Christmas is over?” Ryan chokes out. He’s not crying. He’s holding back, and that nearly breaks Brendon’s heart.  
Smiling through the heavy atmosphere, Brendon whispers, “Till death do us part.”

And through all his misery, Ryan smiles. He smiles as tears run down his red cheeks and smiles as the sobs issue from his throat as his eyes glaze over with sadness. Ryan smiles, nonetheless, into the Christmas morning.

Brendon engulfs him in a tight embrace and pats his hair and his back and every inch of Ryan he can reach, dotting kisses along his face and kissing the tears off his cheeks. “You’re okay, Ry. You’re always going to be okay.”

“B-brendon?” Ryan sniffles. “Can we have the longest engagement known to man?”

Brendon scrunches his face up. “Why?”

“Because… I want to marry you next Christmas.”

And the tears start flowing down Brendon’s face, and for once, it’s not from sadness.


	29. New Year's Eve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Did you try the mistletoe?”
> 
> “No.”
> 
> “Why not?”
> 
> “Because I couldn’t find one large enough to tie around William’s dick-- why do you think I didn’t?!” Gabe cries outraged.

“I give up.”

“You can’t give up. Imagine if Britney Spears had given up!”

“… _what?_ ”

“Then we’d all be deprived of her catchy pop tunes, as we know them today!” Ryland claps Gabe on the back, smiling cheerfully in light of the holiday season.

They’re in Victoria’s apartment where everything is neat and tidy and it looks like the OCD-storm of William Beckett had ridden through only seconds ago. The artificial tree is lit up in the corner of the room, there’s not a scrap of leftover wrapping paper from Christmas Day on the floor, and the only food laying around is the leftover dinner tucked away in Tupperware containers in the refrigerator. Vicky’s house smells like AirWick and a bit like wet dog, but Gabe isn’t sure if that’s Gizmo or Ryland.

“Ry, you give terrible advice,” Vicky calls from the kitchen where she’s meticulously wiping the counters down and the stove down.

“How did Ryland get you, then?” Gabe asks.

Vicky laughs, “Ryland didn’t ‘get’ me. I got him.”

Gabe blinks a few times before looking back at Ryland. “You told me you asked her out!”

“I did,” he fumbles a little, “but she rejected me--”

“Twice,” Vicky says in return.

Gabe feels like this whole ‘admitting he’s in love with William during the holiday season’ is completely hopeless at this point. “Well, Vicky, what do I do?”

“Did you try the mistletoe?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I couldn’t find one large enough to tie around William’s dick-- _why do you think I didn’t_?!” Gabe cries outraged.

“Calm down.” Vicky enters the room and sits down on the couch next to Ryland, who slyly wraps an arm around her waist, but she notices and relaxes into the touch anyways. “Gabe, it’s all very simple. It’s just three words.”

“But it needs to be three special words.”

“Gabe, I doubt William cares about the situation under which he hears them. I’m sure he just wants to hear them.”

“But I care!” Gabe whines desperately. “This needs to be perfect, Vic.

It had been twenty-nine days, so far, of the holiday season. Twenty-nine days, and Gabe still hadn’t managed to squeeze in a single ‘I love you’ on any of the calendar dates. In fact, Gabe was beginning to think there would be no time to tell William how he felt before December was over. Today was the last day. Tomorrow would be January and gone with it the dregs of Christmas.

Gone with it another year in which Gabe had failed to sum up to William their feelings for each other.

Because somehow Gabe believes that William feels just as strongly for him- maybe even loves him. He remembers those drunken words so long ago that William had murmured and slurred to his angel, Gabriel. Gabe remembers the ‘I love you’ hidden somewhere between the fine line of drunkenness and sobriety. It had to be.

“Gabe, don’t get stressed,” Vicky reprimanded politely, “I haven’t seen you this worked up in a relationship since… well… ever.”

“It’s not just any relationship,” Gabe sighed, “it’s William Beckett.”

And that was that.

 

\---

 

When dusk long since set across Chicago, and the sable sky shown brightly amidst the streetlamps and the full moon and the glittering snow below, Gabe left for William’s house. It was 11:30 when he left, and he knew he was cutting it short tonight for New Year’s Eve. The one day of the year (besides his birthday) that William demanded company on. He was like a lone puppy in the kennel, constantly waiting around for someone to play with him.

Gabe chuckled at the image and kept tabs on the clock as he drove down the series of streets that led to William’s house. He knew them like the back of his hand, every curve or bend of the street, every stop sign and crosswalk that led to where he belonged, which was… home.

It was the only word that ever comes to Gabe’s mind when he’s searching for one to describe William’s place. Sure, he resides there with William, but he still had his lease on his shitty apartment downtown that he had moved out of all together and was slowly waiting for his lease to expire. But, still, he had a place to live. Yet, there he is, all the time, in William’s bed. Laying side by side and listening to their breaths mingle in the still night. Listening to their heartbeats synchronize and all the unsaid words between them.

_“I love you.”_

Gabe glances at the clock again and cusses the traffic. He’s got ten minutes to get to William’s, kiss his lips, and wish him a happy New Year’s.

Of course, Gabe’s got more than that planned, though. It had been Vicky’s idea, really. Tell William he loves him when the ball drops. When the countdown ends. When their lips press together and their eyes close and nothing else matters but the two of them. And Gabe can whisper out, amidst the happy celebration and the new year, that he loves William Eugene Beckett. That he thinks he always that. That he thinks he always will.

But, so far, the fates aren’t adding up and the stars aren’t aligning because it’s five minutes till midnight and Gabe still isn’t at William’s house!

His fingers fidget on the wheel, and he stare down the street where he can see the light on in William’s quaint little suburban house, no doubt waiting for Gabe to come home, wondering if he is even coming home (maybe he thinks Gabe forgot about him and went out to get drunk!). Gabe fidgets in his seat, wondering how he can apologize to William for missing midnight.

He would bet all his money William made an 11:11 wish that he would kiss Gabe this New Year’s. So far, they had missed all their previous New Year’s kisses as a couple.  
It seemed that time controlled everything tonight.

Gabe beeps his horn, but all he gets in return are angry drivers honking back. The feat is useless. He can imagine William sitting, cross-legged, on the overstuffed sofa, lips pursed, staring at the clock and tapping his fingers against his thigh impatiently. He can imagine him frowning and making faces at the lovely couples on the television in Times Square and wondering where his other half was at.

Gabe can see William and all the ways he will be disappointed in him tonight.

It’s four minutes till midnight.

Gabe drums his fingers against the steering wheel some more, turns the radio up, and tries to ignore the haunting thoughts of failure in his mind. That he won’t be able to tell William he loves him. That the words will never be said to the younger man. That he’ll always walk around unknowing of how Gabe feels about him. And the worst is, that Gabe will never find out if his love is reciprocated or if this is some sort of temporary fling.

Three minutes till midnight.

Gabe peers out the window, the crisp wintry breeze filling his nostrils with the thick smell of diesel in the air. Around him, sludgy snow banks against the sides of the road where it pours into the gutters. Quilted snow lays like patches in surrounding lawns and Gabe can already picture his and William’s footsteps from all their excursions out this winter.

He can picture William’s form in the snow from when he had tackled him after their carriage ride. And he can picture William, standing in the middle of his yard, with his tongue out, trying to catch a flake. His face is a peony pink, his nose red and rosy, and his smile ever present. Gabe smiles at the mental image and looks at the clock.

Two minutes till midnight.

Finally, without thinking, impulsively and maybe even stupidly, Gabe throws open the door of his car and jumps out of the car, to a chorus of car horns following in his wake. But the traffic is bumper to bumper, and Gabe doesn’t care of he gets a ticket. He only cares about William.

Skittering across the road to the pavement, Gabe begins running. Running faster than he’s ever run in his whole life. His breath comes out in hitched wheezes of smoke that dissipates in the December air, immediately. He runs and runs, William’s house in his eye and blinking like the North Star. His blood pumps and his veins pound, and his heart palpitations thump loudly in his ear.

But Gabe runs and runs until his muscles burn and he’s gasping for breath. Until there’s a hitch in his side and a skip in his heartbeats.

Until he’s right outside William’s door and pounding on it furiously, having forgotten his key again.

It takes three seconds for William to open it, three seconds for the ball to drop, and three seconds for Gabe to press his lips to William’s amid an uproar of car horns celebrating, screams and fireworks going off around the street and drunken shouts all down the road. William tastes sweet like hot chocolate, and Gabe cups his face in his hands tenderly and slides his tongue in William’s mouth, reveling at the way the two of them fit together like a puzzle piece. 

Pulling a hairsbreadth away, Gabe whispers to William, “I love you.”

“W-what?” William’s big doe eyes blink. Open. Close. Shocked.

“I love you,” Gabe repeats confidently, done with the enigmatic Spanish phrases and the clever ruses and the useless gimmicks. “I love you, William Eugene Beckett. I love everything about you. I’ve loved you since we met, and I’ll love you even after I die. Guillermo, te amo.”

“G-gabe.” And William’s eyes are filled with tears, shimmering in a honeyed pool in his eyes. One rolls down his cheek, and Gabe catches it with his fingers. His heart is still pounding in his ear, his breaths are still erratic and uneven, and he feels like he’s light-headed and about to collapse atop of William. “Y-you love me?”

Gabe nods, fearless. “I do, William.” He grabs for William’s hand and squeezes it tight. “I ran all this way to tell you because I don’t want us entering the new year and you not knowing. It just doesn’t seem fair.”

“You love me,” William says again, breathless, and suddenly he’s got a goofy smile on his face as though he’s on top of the world or something. “You love me.”

Gabe smiles, too.

“A-and I love you, too.” William stutters quickly, squeezing Gabe’s hand back as though he might disappear or fly away with the stroke of midnight. But Gabe chuckles because it’s 12:02, and William knows he loves him, and reality isn’t always fairytales.

Sometimes, it’s better.

“I meant it,” William explains, “that time I was drunk, I remember it, Gabe. A-and I told you I loved you, b-but I could only do it drunk. And now I’m glad that I don’t have to be drunk to love you, anymore.”

“William, you never have to be drunk to love me. Remember that. I’m here with you. Always.” Gabe presses their lips together again, tasting the sweetness lingering on William’s tongue and inhaling the aroma of him, fresh from the shower and sweet enough that Gabe swears this is it, this is his favorite drug.

“Now,” and this time William smirks again Gabe’s lips, “why don’t we pop the champagne and have ourselves a real party?”

Gabe feels his knees give out a little. “You kill me, Bilvy.”

William grabs his jacket and pulls him inside with a ‘come hither’ look that he wears so well.

“Have I ever told you I love you?” Gabe breathes out.

And William, he laughs.


	30. New Year's Day

When Jack and Alex had finally agreed to cement their relationship in stone and seal it with a kiss (that wasn’t a hangover kiss), Alex originally thought that the dynamics of their relationship would inevitably change. He was wrong, however.

Alex wakes up on New Year’s Day, pleasantly not hung over and regretting decisions from last night. But he wakes up very much alone that New Year’s Day. This, of course, would not have been as strange had Alex not fallen asleep cuddled up next to Jack.

They had lain awake into the night, whispering to each other lame little sentiments until Jack had made a ‘your mom’ joke and eventually every word that came from their mouths after that was about how fat the other’s mother really was. 

“My mother’s a nice lady,” Alex had finally said.

“You’re a nice lady,” Jack had retorted.

Alex shifted in the sheets and turned his body to face Jack. His best friend. His soul mate. And now: his lover. Jack, who had been through his brother’s death with him and his dog’s death and the torturous years of high school and the alcohol addiction and the break-ups from bitchy girlfriends. Jack, who Alex had shared more laughter and tears and terrible jokes with. “Jack?”

“Yeah, Lex?”

“W-wouldn’t you prefer if I was a girl?” Alex raised a brow.

“It would be awesome if you had tits….” Jack began.

“Jack, I’m serious.”

“What do you mean, Alex?”

“Well, wouldn’t things be easier if I was a girl? If we weren’t… gay?”

Jack sighed, “Yes, Alex, everything would be much easier if you were a girl. But if you were any different, you wouldn’t be you. And I love you very much.”

And Jack pecked Alex on the lips and laid back down with an air of finality that Alex found himself smiling giddily at the wall in the darkness of the night as he tried to lull himself to sleep with the sounds of Jack’s breathing.

Now, waking up alone, Alex remembers the affection in Jack’s voice and vaguely wonders if it had been there his whole life and he had failed to see it. Finally, he sits up in bed, rubs his eyes, and makes a move to get up before there is a yelp from the doorway and Alex feels his body collide back into the mattress.

“Don’t move!”

“W-what? Jack, get off me!” Alex gasps and pushed the familiar body of his friend off of him.

“No, Alex, I’m making you breakfast in bed. You can’t get up.”

“I have to piss.”

“I’ll piss on you if you move.”

“Jack!”

Jack groans and mutters a, ‘fine,’ before letting Alex relieve his bladder before the latter saunters back in and lays back in bed. “There. Now you can make me breakfast in bed.”

“It doesn’t count anymore,” Jack tells him matter-of-factly.

“What do you mean?”

“The rules of breakfast in bed state that you can’t leave the bed before breakfast.”

“What rules?”

“The ones I made up.”

“Can’t you amend them?”

Jack clucks his tongue impatiently, “Don’t you know anything of amending the breakfast in bed constitution, Alex? Honestly, it’s like you’re an inbreed.”

“I’m dating you; I must be.”

Jack rolls his eyes and lays down beside Alex, instinctively finding his fingers and intertwining theirs together. And it fits, their hands do. It’s like Alex finding something that had been lost once upon a time. It’s as though Jack’s always been this missing piece in his life that’s been right in front of his face the whole time.

“What’s your new year’s resolution?” Jack asks suddenly.

Alex frowns. “I don’t have one.”

“You have to have one. Everyone has one.”

“How about: more sex with Jack Barakat?”

“Alex, if you stayed true to your word, you’d never be able to walk.”

Alex chuckles, “You give yourself a lot of credit.”

Jack ignores him. “Seriously, dude, what’s your resolution?”

“What’s yours?”

“I can’t tell you, otherwise it won’t come true.”

“Idiot, that’s wishes.”

Jack sticks his tongue out and bites his lip looking ten years younger. “Don’t laugh.”

“I won’t laugh.”

Slowly, almost reluctantly, Jack says, “My resolution is to let you know I love you everyday to make up for all the time we missed out on being stupid.”

Alex screws up his face. “Missed out on?”

“Yeah.” Jack nods and props his head on his hand. “Think of all the days, weeks-- maybe even years-- we could’ve had in a relationship.”

“It’s not like we were ever really far from each other,” Alex amends.

“I know, but we could’ve been closer.”

And Jack looks disappointed. He really does. His eyes are big and sad and his lips are twitching instead of contorting into that dopey smile he usually hones. He looks like he’s only just realized how much time he and Alex have missed out on as the two tip-toed around their relationship. That makes Alex a little disappointed, as though it’s his fault that he and Jack are spending their first New Year’s together when there could have been previous years of memories built up of kisses at midnight and crawling in between the sheets and feeling loved.

“I’m sorry,” whispers Alex.

Jack smiles, but it’s barely there. “It’s not your fault, Lex. I was stupid.”

“What do you mean?”

“You don’t think I loved you before all this?” Jack chokes out a laugh, “Alex, I’ve been in love with you since high school. I pined after you for days, watching you go through girlfriend after girlfriend, going home disappointed every day because fuck, _why couldn’t you have just looked at me the same way I looked at you?_  And all those nights when you were drowning yourself in alcohol? God, those killed me, Lex. Watching you torture and hurt yourself like that because you thought you were unloved and useless and pathetic. Somehow, I thought you’d catch on. Like, maybe you’d realize that I don’t stay up till four in the morning with all of my drunk friends. Or that I don’t try to kiss away their hangovers. Eventually, I thought, maybe, you just didn’t want me.”

“Jack….” Alex wiggles closer to his best friend and reaches forward to stroke his cheek, watching Jack’s eyes shine with vulnerability and regret. “I should’ve known all along. I was stupid for not realizing it. All this time, it was always you.”  
“

Yeah?”

“Jack, you’re my soul mate,” Alex mutters.

Then, without warning, Jack smashes their lips together and slips his tongue in, so Alex can taste him. Jack tastes like Cookie Crisp and milk and a dash of coffee that Alex has slowly become accustomed to. It’s unsurprising, the way Jack tastes, because Alex has always had the flavor of Jack, just never knew he always had the flavor of him.

“You mean that?” Jack mumbles between his lips, as though he’s afraid to pull away. As though, if he pulls away, he and Alex will be nothing but friends with all the distance of the past between them.

“I’ve always known you were my soul mate,” Alex tells him, “I just, not until this Christmas, did I realize it was more intimate than I’d originally intended.”

“Soul mates means forever, right?” Jack asks tentatively.

Alex smiles. “Yeah.”

“I used to dream about you so much,” Jack goes on, “but reality is so much fucking better than dreaming.”

“You’re turning into a sop,” Alex giggles.

Jack rests his forehead against Alex’s and blinks up at him. “Yeah? Well, maybe it’s not so bad.”

“Screw breakfast in bed,” Alex says, “let’s just lay here, like this, forever.”

“Only if you tell me your new year’s resolution.”

“You really wanna know?”

“Yeah.”

“My new year’s resolution is to never let you believe you’re unwanted, Jack.”

Jack smiles giddily. “We really are soul mates, aren’t we?”

Alex merely kisses him in acquiescence, savoring the taste of him on his tongue and knowing that their futures will be filled with many more moments like this.

And to think, it’d only taken them thirty days to get here.


End file.
